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The  Bearing  of  the  Evolutionary  Theory 
on  the  Conception  of  God — A  Study 
in  Contemporary  Interpretations 
of  God  in  Terms  of  the  Doc- 
trine of  Evolution 


A  DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED  TO  THE  FACULTY  OF  THE  GRADUATE  DIVINITY  SCHOOL^IN 

CANDIDACY  FOR  THE  DEGREE  OF  DOCTOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

(department  op  systematic  theology) 


BY 
UKICHI  KAWAGUCH] 


A  Private  Edition 

Distributed  by 

The  University  of  Chicago  Libraries 

1916 


h3 


GEORGE  BANTA  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 
MENASHA,  WISCONSIN 


PREFACE 

The  one  far-reaching  contribution  of  the  nineteenth  century  is  the 
empirically  formulated  concept  of  organic  evolution.  The  object  of 
this  investigation  is  to  ascertain  the  bearing  of  the  evolutionary  theory 
on  the  conception  of  God  as  it  is  worked  out  in  typical  recent  philosophies 
of  reUgion. 

The  method  and  scope  of  the  study  are  as  follows.  In  the  intro- 
duction, we  shall  briefly  consider  certain  typical  a  priori  theories  of 
evolution,  showing  reasons  for  not  including  these  in  our  inquiry.  In 
the  first  part  of  our  main  study,  we  shall  survey  the  problems  due  to  the 
attempt  to  bring  the  evolutionary  theory  into  relation  with  the  tradi- 
tional conception  of  God,  indicating  the  content  and  meaning  of  the 
inductive  evolutionary  theory  and  the  essentials  in  the  traditional  con- 
ception of  God.  We  shall  attempt,  in  the  second  part,  which  forms  the 
main  body  of  our  work,  to  make  a  critical  examination  of  the  solutions 
to  these  problems  given  by  typical  recent  philosophies  of  reHgion, 
namely,  Royce's  absolute  ideaUsm,  Eucken's  philosophy  of  life,  Bowne's 
personal  idealism,  and  James's  pragmatism.  In  our  discussion  of  these 
reUgious  philosophers,  our  treatment  of  them  will  be  limited  by  the 
subject  of  our  study.  Hence  reference  will  be  made  only  to  those  of 
their  works  which  are  more  or  less  directly  related  to  our  subject-matter. 
In  the  third  and  the  last  part,  we  shall  make  a  summary  statement  of  the 
results  and  the  implications  of  our  discussion,  with  particular  reference 
to  the  solutions  examined  in  the  second  part.  In  this  concluding  part, 
we  shall  not  endeavor  to  make  an  exhaustive  treatment  of  the  impUca- 
tions  of  our  inquiry.  We  shall  simply  attempt  to  set  forth  the  general 
bearing  of  the  evolutionary  theory  on  certain  elemental  problems  con- 
nected with  the  doctrine  of  God. 

In  the  preparation  of  this  thesis,  the  writer  wishes  to  acknowledge  his 
indebtedness  to  those  writers  who  are  concerned  with  present  theologico- 
scientific  problems.  This  indebtedness  is  indicated  by  the  references 
made  to  their  works  in  the  following  study.  But  he  is  under  a  special 
obUgation  to  his  teacher.  Professor  Gerald  Bimey  Smith,  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Chicago,  for  his  valuable  criticisms  and  suggestions. 

Ukichi  Kawaguchi. 
Chicago^  Ill.j  August,  1914. 


355379 


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in  2007  with  funding  from 

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TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

Page 

b[bliography vu 

Introduction:  Typical  Modern  Philosophical  Theories  of  Evolution 1 

Part  One 
Survey  of  the  Problems  Involved  in  the  Relation  between  the  Evolutionary 

Theory  and  the  Traditional  Conception  of  God 4 

I.    The  Content  and  Meaning  of  the  Evolutionary  Theory 4 

IT.    The  Traditional  Conception  of  God 13 

III.  The  Problems  Involved  in  the  Relation  between  the  Evolutionary  Theory 

and  the  Traditional  Conception  of  God 16 

Part  Two 
Typical  Recent  Solutions  of  the  Problems  Involved  in  the  Relation  between 

the  Evolutionary  Theory  and  the  Traditional  Conception  of  God 20 

I.     The  Solution  of  the  Problems  in  Royce's  Absolute  Idealism 21 

II.    The  Solution  of  the  Problems  in  Eucken's  Philosophy  of  Life 35 

ni.    The  Solution  of  the  Problems  in  Bowne's  Personal  Idealism  48 

IV.  The  Solution  of  the  Problems  in  James'  Pragmatism 63 

Part  Three 

Statement  of  the  Results  and  Implications  of  the  Foregoing  Discussion 80 

I.    The  Problem  of  Method 81 

II.     The  Problem  of  the  Relation  between  Theology  and  Science 84 

III.  The  Problem  of  God  as  the  Transcendent  Supernatural  Personality 89 

IV.  The  Problem  of  God  as  the  Absolute  Being 92 

V.    The  Problem  of  God's  Relation  to  Man  and  the  World 98 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  main  works  consulted  in  the  preparation  of  the  thesis  are  here  given,  largely 
in  the  order  of  treatment.  The  other  works  referred  to  are  acknowledged  in  the 
footnotes. 

A.    The  Theories  of  Evolution 

Lamarck,  Philosophie  Zoologique,  Paris,  1850. 

A.  S.  Packard,  Lamarck,  The  Founder  of  Evolution,  New  York,  1901. 

Darwin,  The  Origin  of  Species,  New  York,  1867. 

Darwin,  The  Descent  of  Man,  New  York,  1874. 

Bergson,  Creative  Evolution,  Eng.  tr..  New  York,  1911. 

A.  Weismann,  Th€  Evolution  Theory,  2  vols.,  London,  1904. 

H.  DeVries,  Species  and  Varieties,  Chicago,  1905. 

H.  DeVries,  The  Mutation-Theory,  2  vols.,  Chicago,  1909. 

V.  L.  KeUogg,  Darwinism  Today,  New  York,  1907. 

B.  Traditional  Theologies 

C.  Hodge,  Systematic  Theology,  2  vols..  New  York,  1871-1878. 
W.  G.  T.  Shedd,  Dogmatic  Theology,  2  vols..  New  York,  1888. 
A.  H.  Strong,  Systematic  Theology,  3  vols.,  Philadelphia,  1907. 
Wilhelm-Scannell,  A  Manual  of  Catholic  Theology,  2  vols..  New  York,  1899. 
Princeton  Biblical  and  Theological  Studies,  New  York,  1912. 

C.  Typical  Recent  Philosophies  of  Religions 

1.  J.  Royce, 

The  Religious  Aspect  of  Philosophy,  New  York,  1888. 

The  Conception  of  God,  New  York,  1897.  , 

The  World  and  the  Individual,  2  Series,  New  York,  1899-1901. 

The  Philosophy  of  Loyalty,  New  York,  1908. 

William  James  and  Other  Essays,  New  York,  1911. 

The  Sources  of  Religious  Insight,  New  York,  1912. 

The  Problem  of  Christianity,  2  vols.,  New  York,  1913. 

2.  R.  Eucken, 

Christianity  and  the  New  Idealism,  Eng.  tr..  New  York,  1909. 

The  Problem  of  Human  Life,  Eng.  tr,.  New  York,  1909. 

The  Life  of  the  Spirit,  Eng.  tr..  New  York,  1909. 

Life's  Basis  and  Life's  Ideal,  Eng.  tr.,  Ix)ndon,  1911. 

The  Truth  of  Religion,  Eng.  tr..  New  York,  1911. 

Main  Currents  of  Modern  Thought,  Eng.  tr.,  New  York,  1912. 

3.  B.  P.  Bowne, 

Theory  of  Thought  and  Knowledge,  New  York,  1897. 

Metaphysics,  New  York,  1898. 

Theism,  New  York,  1902. 

The  Immanence  of  God,  New  York,  1905. 

Persdnalism,  New  York,  1908. 

The  Essence  of  Religion,  Boston,  1910. 


VIU  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

4.    Wm.  James, 

The  Will  to  Believe,  New  York,  1897. 

The  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience,  New  York,  1902. 

Pragmatism,  New  York,  1907. 

The  Meaning  of  Truth,  New  York,  1909. 

A  Pluralistic  Universe,  New  York,  1909. 

Some  Problems  of  Philosophy,  New  York,  1911. 

Essays  in  Radical  Empiricism,  New  York,  1912. 

D.  Works  Bearing  on  Present  Theologico-Scientific  Problems 

E.  S.  Ames,  The  Psychology  of  Religious  Experience,  Boston,  1910. 
J.  M.  Baldwin,  Darwin  and  the  Humanities,  Baltimore,  1909. 

L.  T.  Hobhouse,  Development  and  Purpose,  London,  1913. 
H.  Hoffding,  The  Problems  of  Philosophy,  London,  1905. 

F.  H.  Johnson,  God  in  Evolution,  New  York,  London,  1911. 
I.  King,  The  Development  of  Religion,  New  York,  1910. 

E.  W.  Lyman,  Theology  and  Human  Problems,  New  York,  1910. 
A.  W.  Moore,  Pragmatism  and  Its  Critics,  Chicago,  1910. 

W.  Ostwald,  Natural  Philosophy,  New  York,  1910. 

K.  Pearson,  The  Gramma  of  Science,  London,  1900. 

R.  B.  Perry,  Present  Philosophical  Tendencies,  New  York,  1912. 

H.  Poincare,  The  Foundations  of  Science,  New  York,  1913. 

F.  C.  S.  Schiller,  Riddles  of  the  Sphinx,  London,  1891. 

F.  C.  S.  Schiller,  Studies  in  Humanism,  London,  1907. 

J.  M.  E.  McTaggart,  Some  Dogmas  of  Religion,  London,  1906. 

G.  B.  Smith,  Social  Idealism  and  the  Changing  Theology,  New  York,  1913, 
J.  Ward,  The  Realm  of  Ends,  Cambridge  and  New  York,  1911. 

E.  S.  Waterhouse,  Modern  Theories  of  Religion,  London,  1910. 


INTRODUCTION:  TYPICAL  MODERN  PHILOSOPHICAL 
THEORIES  OF  EVOLUTION 

The  most  typical  modern  philosophical  theories  of  evolution  are 
those  of  Hegel  and  of  Spencer.  A  brief  examination  and  critique  of 
their  conceptions  of  evolution  forms  the  introduction  to  the  main  task 
of  our  investigation. 

Hegel  has  given  an  elaborate  philosophical  expression  of  the  his- 
torical spirit  of  the  nineteenth  century.  The  worid  of  nature  and  of 
man,  for  him,  constitute  the  manifestations  of  the  underiying  cosmic 
reason.  The  method  by  which  he  arrived  at  this  conception  is  through 
the  analysis  of  human  consciousness.  When  we  discover  the  laws  of  our 
thought,  according  to  Hegel,  we  know  the  nature  of  cosmic  reality; 
for  the  laws  of  hiunan  thought  are  identical  with  those  of  that  reality. 
Hegel  finds  that  we  think  in  terms  of  comparison  and  differentiation. 
When  I  define  a  thing,  I  define  it  by  setting  over  against  it  something 
which  is  not  that  thing;  and  after  this  process  of  comparison  and  dif- 
ferentiation, I  reach  a  synthetic  idea  which  reconciles  the  antithesis 
involved  in  the  relation  of  being  and  nought,  subject  and  object,  ego  and 
non-ego.  In  short,  we  have  the  HegeUan  dialectic:  thesis,  antithesis, 
and  synthesis.  This  triadic  process  of  thought  is  seen,  for  example, 
in  Hegel's  analysis  of  the  notion  of  Being.  We  have  first  the  notion  of 
Being,  and  then  over  against  this  notion,  we  have  that  of  Nought. 
These  notions  are  abstract  and  antithetical.  But  their  abstractness  and 
antithesis  find  their  concreteness  and  reconciliation  in  the  notion  of 
Becoming.^  In  this  triadic  process  of  thought,  Hegel  finds  the  nature  of 
cosmic  reality  or  reason.  This  reason  objectifies  itself  in  nature  and 
comes  to  its  subjective  consciousness  in  the  mind  of  humanity.^ 

Now,  the  point  with  which  we  are  here  concerned  is  this:  whether 
the  cosmic  reality,  which  Hegel  holds  to  be  engaged  in  the  processes  of 
manifestation,  is  involved  in  a  real  evolution.  From  his  extensive 
appeal  to  history,  and  from  such  an  expression  as:  "Of  the  Absolute 
it  must  be  said  that  it  is  essentially  a  result,  that  only  at  the  end  is  it 
what  it  is  in  the  very  truth,  "^  it  would  seem  that  Hegel  attributed  to 
reaUty  a  real  change  and  growth.  But  a  closer  examination  shows  that 
Hegel  does  not  find  such  a  change  and  growth  in  the  ultimate  being  of 
cosmic  reality.     The  cosmic  reason,  in  his  thought,  unfolds  in  nature 

» WaUace,  The  Logic  of  Hegel,  1892,  pp.  158  ff. 

2  Hegel,  The  Philosophy  of  History,  Eng.  tr.,  1890,  p.  10. 

3  The  Phenomenology  of  Mind,  Eng.  tr.,  1910,  I,  p.  17,  cf.  II,  p.  822. 


2  BEARING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

and  history  what  it  already  possesses.^  "Development  or  progress," 
says  Hegel,  "is  not  the  making  of  something  out  of  nothing,  but  the 
end  unfolding,  or  manifestation  of  that  which  in  another  respect  eternally 
is."^  Hegel's  theory  of  evolution  is,  at  best,  one  of  thought-process,  but 
not  of  time-process.^ 

God,  from  the  standpoint  of  Hegel's  dialectic,  is  the  ultimate  reason 
of  the  world  wherein  he  is  manifesting  himself  and  working  out  his 
plan  {The  Philosophy  of  History,  p.  38).  "God,"  for  Hegel,  "is  the 
absolutely  True,  the  Universal  in  and  for  itself,  the  All-comprehending, 
All-containing,  that  from  which  everything  derives  substance."^  This 
God  manifests  himself  in  the  different  stages  of  religious  development, 
and  reaches  his  highest  expression  in  the  absolute  religion;^  and  yet  he 
is  eternally  the  same,  self-identical  God.^  Thus  Hegel  stands  for  a 
closed  system  of  reality;  in  his  universe,  there  is  no  real  evolution. 

When  we  pass  from  the  idealistic  evolutionary  theory  of  Hegel  to 
that  of  Spencer,  we  find  a  mechanical  theory  of  evolution.  Spencer 
divided  reality  into  that  which  is  relative  and  that  which  is  absolute. 
The  former  is  knowable  and  open  to  the  investigations  of  objective 
sciences;  the  latter  is  unknowable,  and  while  underlying  both  science  and 
religion,  it  is  beyond  our  finite  knowledge.  The  purpose  of  Spencer  is  to 
synthesize  the  facts  of  the  knowable  region  into  a  synthetic  philosophy 
by  means  of  his  theory  of  evolution,  which  is  expressed  in  the  formula: 
^^  Evolution  is  an  integration  of  matter  and  concomitant  dissipation  of 
motion;  during  which  the  matter  passes  from  an  indefinite ,  incoherent 
homogeneity  to  a  definite,  coherent  heterogeneity,  during  which  the  retained 
motion  undergoes  a  parallel  transformation.^ ^^^  These  phenomena  of 
evolution  in  the  knowable  realm  of  reality  are  made  possible  by  the 

4  Hegel,  The  Philosophy  of  History,  pp.  57,  82;  WaUace,  op.  ciL,  p.  379. 

*  Quoted  by  Adamson  in  his  The  Development  of  Modern  Philosophy,  1903,  II, 
p.  303. 

«  See  Ritchie,  Darwin  and  Hegel,  1893,  p.  47;  Baldwin,  Darwin  and  the  Humanities, 
p.  88,  footnote;  McTaggart,  A  Commentary  on  Hegel's  Logic,  1910,  pp.  18  flf.;  Rogers, 
Student's  History  of  Philosophy,  1908,  p.  452. 

'  The  Philosophy  of  Religion,  I,  p.  90. 

^Ibid.,  II,  pp.  327  S. 

8  For  the  use  made  of  this  HegeHan  conception  of  God,  see  John  Caird,  An  Intro- 
duction to  the  Philosophy  of  Religion,  1891,  The  Fundamental  Ideas  of  Christianity, 
1899,  esp.  Lectures,  III,  VI,  VII;  CampbeU,  The  New  Theology,  Chaps.  II,  III,  IV; 
Gordon,  Ultimate  Conceptions  of  Faith,  1903,  Chap.  IX;  Hyde,  Outlines  of  Social  The- 
ology, 1895,  Part  I. 

10  First  Principles,  1900,  p.  407. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  3 

cosmic  force,  the  unknowable  absolute/^  but  this  is  not  subject  to  evo- 
lution. 

The  question  which  we  raise  in  this  connection  is  this :  Does  Spencer 
hold  to  a  rear  evolution  in  the  being  of  reality?  It  is  manifest  that  he 
exempts  the  underlying,  unknowable  reality  from  any  evolution.  Is 
there  a  real  evolution,  then,  in  the  knowable  reaUty?  In  the  knowable 
region  of  reality,  according  to  Spencer,  there  are  going  on  changes, 
transformations,  evolutions,  dissolutions.  But,  however,  we  fail  to  see  a 
real  change  and  growth  even  in  the  knowable  reality  of  Spencer;  for 
him,  matter,  motion,  and  force  are  given  once  for  all,  and  they  are  con- 
stant quantities.^  Thus  the  universe,  in  all  its  knowable  and  unknow- 
able aspects,  is  quantitatively  constant  in  its  being.  Consequently,  God, 
who  is  identified  by  Spencer  with  his  unknowable  absolute,  is  free  from 
all  evolution.  While  the  evolutionism  of  Spencer,  therefore,  calls  for  a 
change  in  our  conception  of  God's  relation  to  the  world,  it  does  not 
demand  a  radical  change  in  our  view  of  the  nature  of  God.^^ 

Thus  both  Hegel  and  Spencer  stand,  though  in  different  ways,  for  a 
closed  system  of  reahty;  in  their  world  there  is  no  real  growth,  but  aU  is 
constant  and  is  given  once  for  all.  This  being  the  case,  it  is  not  our  aim 
to  ascertain  the  bearing  of  their  theories  of  evolution  on  the  conception  of 
God.  We  shall  turn  at  once  to  the  empirical  conception  of  evolution 
and  consider  its  consequences  for  the  doctrine  of  God. 

"  IhU.,  p.  200. 

^^Ihid.,  pp.  176  ff.,  184  £f.,  194  ff. 

"  For  the  use  and  criticism  of  Spencer's  conception  of  God,  see  Fiske,  Cosmic 
Philosophy,  1874,  Part  III,  Chaps.  II,  III;  Picton,  The  Religion  of  the  Universe]  Flint, 
Agnosticism,  pp.  629  ff.;  Boutroux,  Science  et  Religion,  Paris,  1908,  pp.  80  ff. 


BEARING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 


PART  ONE 

Survey  of  the  Problems  Involved  in  the  Relation  Between  the 
Evolutionary  Theory  and  the  Traditional  Conception  oe  God 

/.     The  Content  and  Meaning  of  the  Evolutionary  Theory. 

Obviously  it  is  a  first  task  in  this  investigation  to  determine  the 
content  and  meaning  of  the  evolutionary  theory  as  held  by  empirical 
science.  This  task  is  necessitated  by  the  fact  that  the  concept  of  evolu- 
tion is  used  in  varied  senses.  We  shall  briefly  consider  typical  theories  of 
evolution,  and  then  attempt  to  indicate  the  central  elements  common  to 
the  theories.  The  bearing  of  these  on  the  conception  of  God  is  our  main 
concern. 

A.    T)rpical  Inductive  Theories  of  Evolution. 

(i)    Lamarck's  Theory  of  Evolution. 

It  is  generally  agreed  that  the  first  scientist  who  inductively  formu- 
lated a  theory  of  evolution  was  Lamarck  (1744-1829).  Osborn  observes 
that  Lamarck,  "as  founder  of  the  complete  modern  theory  of  descent, 
is  the  most  prominent  figure  between  Aristotle  and  Darwin."^  Prior  to 
Lamarck,  it  is  true,  the  doctrine  of  celestial  and  of  terrestrial  evolution 
had  been  expressed;  but  Lamarck  applied  the  evolutionary  idea  to  the 
realm  of  organic  life.  And  at  the  time  of  Lamarck  his  contemporary 
naturalists  held  to  the  theory  of  the  immutability  of  species  and  the 
doctrine  of  special  creations.  Lamarck  in  his  early  days  shared  these 
views.  But  by  the  publication  of  his  Philosophie  Zoologique,  1809,  he 
reversed  all  previous  thinking  on  the  matter  of  organic  evolution. 

Lamarck's  theory  of  evolution  is  characterized  by  the  three  central 
ideas:  the  influence  of  the  changing  environment  on  the  need  and  habits 
of  organic  beings;  the  effect  of  use  and  disuse  of  organs  in  the  production 
of  changes  in  the  organisms;  and  the  inheritance  of  acquired  characters. 
According  to  Lamarck,  changes  in  the  environment  affect  organisms  in 
two  ways:  they  create  new  needs  and  these  new  needs  produce  in  them 
new  habits.2  This  doctrine  of  the  influence  of  changes  in  the  environ- 
ment is  closely  connected  with  Lamarck's  other  idea,  namely,  that  of  the 
effect  of  use  and  disuse.  Lamarck  holds  that  the  environmental  changes, 
in  creating  new  needs  in  the  animals,  cause  in  them  new  movements  to 
satisfy  the  new  needs;  these  new  needs,  which  necessitate  new  actions, 

*  From  the  Greeks  to  Darwin,  p.  156. 

2  Packard,  Lamarck,  The  Fotitider  of  Evolution,  p.  925.  Ih  this  work  Packard 
gives  a  translation  of  Lamarck's  Philosophie  Zoologique. 


ON  TEE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  5 

make  demands  on  the  animals  to  make  use  of  parts  which  were  previously 
relatively  inactive;  and  these  new  parts,  being  thus  used,  develop  and 
become  enlarged.^  The  changes  thus  produced  in  organisms  under  the 
influence  of  changing  environment  and  the  use  and  disuse  of  parts  by 
the  organisms  are  transmitted  from  one  generation  to  another  by  means 
of  heredity.  This  is  Lamarck's  crowning  principle  by  which  he  accounts 
for  the  origin  of  new  species."*  These  are  the  essential  elements  in 
Lamarck's  theory  of  evolution.^ 

We  are  in  this  study  concerned  solely  to  indicate  the  impUcations  of 
Lamarck's  theory  with  reference  to  the  conception  of  God.  Lamarck 
holds  that  all  organisms  arose  from  germs.  The  first  germs  originated 
by  means  of  spontaneous  generation.  This  would  mean  a  reduction  of 
the  divine  activity,  not  only  in  the  production  of  new  species,  but  also 
in  the  formation  of  the  very  beginnings  of  life.  It  is  nature  that  carries 
on  the  process  of  organic  evolution.^  Yet  Lamarck  does  not  dispense 
with  the  activity  of  God  in  the  production  of  species.  He  conceives 
of  God  as  the  Supreme  Author  of  all  things  who  has  endowed  nature 
with  laws  and  properties  for  the  production  and  maintenance  of  all  forms 
of  life.^  God  is  thus  the  first  cause,  but  he  is  not  actually  engaged  in  the 
work  of  organic  evolution.  Thus  the  God  of  Lamarck  is  deistically 
related  to  the  organic  world. 

(ii)     Darwin's  Theory  of  Evolution. 

Lamarck  formulated,  as  has  been  shown,  a  theory  of  evolution  in 
1809.  But  the  thinking  world  continued,  on  the  whole,  to  hold  that 
species  were  fixed  reahties  and  that  they  were  each  specially  created. 
This  is  due,  on  the  one  hand,  to  the  fact  that  the  world  was  not  ready  to 
accept  the  theory  of  organic  evolution,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  to  the 
fact  that  Lamarck  did  not  bring  forth  sufficient  inductive  data  which 
would  compel  its  acceptance.  But  Darwdn,  through  the  publication  of 
his  The  Origin  of  Species  in  1859,  vindicated  the  theory  of  descent 
through  variations  as  an  estabhshed  fact  in  the  organic  realm.  ^  It 
should,  then,  be  noted  that  the  significance  of  Darwin  is  to  be  foimd  not 
in  the  fact  that  he  originated  the  theory  of  evolution,  for  he  did  not,  but 

3  Packard,  Ibid.,  p.  303. 
*/frw/.,  p.  304. 

'  For  a  criticism  of  Lamarckism,  see  Kellogg,  Darwinism  Today,  pp.  265  ff. 
« Packard,  op.  cit.,  p.  284,  cf.  p.  158. 
'  Philosophie  Zoologique,  I,  p.  113. 

®  See  Wallace,  Darwinism,  p.  6;  Hoffding  in  Seward,  Darwin  and  Modern  Science, 
1909,  p.  447;  DeLagima,  Dogmatism  and  Evolution,  1910,  p.  117. 


6  BEARING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

in  the  double  fact  that  he  gathered  an  astonishing  mass  of  empirical 
data  respecting  plants  and  animals,  and  that  he  worked  out  the  theory 
of  natural  selection  to  account  for  their  evolution.  Thus  the  universal 
acceptance  of  the  theory  of  descent  results  from  the  convincing  character 
of  Darwin's  data  on  the  subject.  Hence  to  estimate  properly  the  place 
of  Darwin,  we  need  to  take  account  of  the  thoroughly  scientific  method 
with  which  he  proceeded  in  his  work  as  well  as  of  his  theory  of  natural 
selection. 

The  central  elements  in  Darwin's  theory  of  evolution  are  as  follows: 
The  first  is  the  fact  of  heredity^  It  is  a  matter  of  common  observation 
that  plants  and  animals  reproduce  their  own  kind.  The  regularity  and 
uniformity  of  this  reproductive  process  of  nature  is  fully  recognized  and 
depended  upon  by  Darwin  to  account  for  the  formation  of  species.  The 
second  element  is  also  the  commonly  observed  fact  that  all  individuals 
differ  from  one  another  and  from  their  parents.  This  is  the  principle  of 
variation.  The  differences,  though  slight,  among  offspring  from  the 
same  parents  are,  for  Darwin,  very  important,  as  they  afford  material 
for  natural  selection  to  accumulate,  preserve,  and  give  rise  to  new 
species.^  The  third  element  is  the  fact  that  all  organized  beings  multiply 
at  an  enormous  rate — at  a  geometrical  ratio.  The  increase  of  organisms 
at  such  a  rate  leads  to  what  Darwin  calls  the  struggle  for  existence.^^ 
This  leads  to  the  last  and  crowning  element,  the  principle  of  natural 
selection.  Darwin  shows  that  variations  useful  to  organisms  are  natur- 
ally preserved  for  their  good,  while  those  which  are  harmful  to  them  are 
likewise  destroyed.^^  "This  preservation  of  favorable  variations  and 
the  rejection  of  injurious  variations,  I  call  Natural  Selection. "^^  The 
above  elements  constitute  the  gist  of  Darwin's  theory  of  evolution.^^ 

The  theological  implication  of  Darwin's  theory  of  evolution  is  similar 
to  that  of  Lamarck.  Darwin  has  convincingly  shown  that  the  formation 
of  species  is  not  by  special  creation  but  by  natural  selection.  He  holds 
that  miraculous  interventions  are  wholly  unnecessary  in  the  process  of 
organic  evolution.  The  laws  of  heredity,  imperceptible  variations,  over- 
multiplication  of  organisms,  and  natural  selection  or  the  survival  of  the 

'  The  Origin  of  Species,  p,  45. 

io/6wf.,  p.  63. 

^^  Ibid.,  p.  77. 

» Ibid.,  p.  7S. 

"  For  some  discussions  on  Darwinism,  see  Kellogg,  op.  cit. ;  Schmucker,  The 
Meaning  of  Evolution,  1912.  A  quite  different  theory  of  evolution  from  that  of 
Darwin  is  found  in  DeVries,  The  Mutation-Theory,  and  Species  and  Varieties.  He 
holds  that  the  formation  of  species  is  result  of  sudden,  discontinuous  changes. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  7 

fittest  are  sufficient  to  account  for  the  transformations  in  organic  realm. 
Darwin  does  not  do  away  with  the  work  of  God,  <X)ut  he  relegates  the 
activity  of  God  to  the  beginnings  of  life.  God,  according  to  Darwin, 
has  impressed  laws  on  matter  for  the  production  of  organisms.^''  But 
we  must  note,  in  justice  to  Darwin,  that  he  is  not  primarily  concerned 
with  the  metaphysics  of  evolution  but  with  its  processes.^ 

(iii)     Bergson's  Theory  of  Evolution. 

Hitherto  our  discussion  has  been  confined  to  the  theories  of  evolution 
primarily  in  their  empirical  aspects.  They  make  no  attempt  at  philo- 
sophic explanation.  But  in  Bergson  we  find  the  two  interests  combined: 
scientific  and  philosophic.  Bergson  starts  with  the  inductive  data  of 
biological  evolution,  and  proceeds,  on  the  basis  of  these  data,  to  build  a 
philosophy  of  evolution.  The  central  elements  of  his  philosophy  may  be 
considered  as  three:  the  view  of  reaUty  as  change  or  duration;  the  doc- 
trine of  the  original  impetus  of  life;  and  the  theory  of  knowledge  based 
on  intuition.  Of  these  we  are  specially  cohcemed  with  the  first  two, 
for  they  have  direct  relation  to  his  theory  of  evolution. 

1.     ReaUty  as  Change  or  Duration. 

Bergson  commences  his  ^^  Creative  Evolution^^  with  an  analysis  of 
human  consciousness.  Here  we  are  on  most  certain  groimd,  in  that 
we  can  take  an  internal  view  of  ourselves.  What  do  we  find,  then,  in 
our  consciousness?  The  most  universal  fact  of  our  consciousness 
is  change,  a  change  not  only  in  the  passage  from  one  state  to  another 
of  our  consciousness,  but  also  in  the  states  themselves.  In  fact,  there 
is  no  essential  difference  between  the  passage  from  one  state  to  another 
and  the  persisting  in  the  same  states.^®  In  our  effort  to  give  vahdity  to 
these  changing  states,  we  fall  back  on  some  unchanging  ego,  a  fixed 
substratum.  But  for  Bergson  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  fixed  ego,  an 
entity,  or  stuff;  aU  is  change  and  duration.^^ 

From  this  examination  of  human  consciousness  which  is  bound  up 
with  change  and  duration,  Bergson  passes  to  existence  in  general.  Ma- 
terial objects,  according  to  Bergson,  do  not  share  the  changing  charac- 
teristics of  organic  life.  Matter  as  such  is  lifeless  and  dead;  it  is  inca- 
pable of  change  by  itself.  The  material  world  is  a  world  of  mechanism 
where  the  future  is  foreseeable.  Time  does  not  bite  into  it.  But  there 
is  undeniably  a  succession  of  time  in  material  systems.     Such  a  suc- 

"  Ibid.,  pp.  424  ff. 

^*  The  Descent  of  Man,  pp.  702  f . 

i«  Op.  cit.,  pp.  1  ff. 

"  Ibid.,  p.  4. 


8  BEARING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

cession  is  a  sign  of  their  likeness  to  ourselves.  Further,  matter  has  a 
tendency  to  form  isolable  systems,  but  their  isolation  is  not  complete; 
they  are  bound  up  with  extra-material  influences.  There  is,  indeed,  a 
thread  which  binds  all  the  elements  of  the  universe  into  an  organic 
unity.  It  is  because  of  this  thread,  which  is  transmitted  to  the  smallest 
particles  of  the  universe,  that  we  experience  in  life  the  duration  that  is 
immanent  in  the  whole  of  the  universe.  Thus  the  condition  of  change 
and  duration  in  the  material  systems  is  that  they  shall  be  reintegrated 
with  the  whole  of  reality.^^ 

So  the  universe  as  a  whole  changes  and  endures.  It  also  grows.  The 
universe  is  not  ready-made;  it  is  growing  and  making  new  additions. 
Reality  is  in  the  process  of  continual  change  and  growth.  It  is  ever 
creating  and  adding  to  itseh  new  worlds.^^  The  universe  is  thus  acting, 
creating,  and  growing. 

2.     The  Vital  Impetus. 

It  is  the  doctrine  of  the  vital  impetus  that  differentiates  the  theory  of 
Bergson  from  mechanism,  finalism,  and  the  theories  of  evolution  which 
have  been  considered.  Bergson  sets  forth  his  doctrine  of  the  original 
impetus  of  life  in  opposition  to  what  he  calls  radical  mechanism  and 
radical  finalism.  He  considers  these  systems  of  thought  as  utterly 
inadequate  to  explain  the  phenomena  of  life.  Radical  mechanism  is 
inadequate  in  that  it  views  all  things  as  already  given  and  made,  whereas 
in  reahty  we  cannot  take  such  a  view.  "We  perceive  duration  as  a 
stream  against  which  we  cannot  go.  It  is  the  foundation  of  our  being, 
and,  as  we  feel,  the  very  substance  of  the  world  in  which  we  live."^" 
Radical  finalism  must  also  be  rejected,  and  for  the  same  reason.  It 
likewise  assumes  that  all  things  are  given  once  for  all  in  eternity.  Radi- 
cal finalism  is  not,  however,  so  rigid  and  fixed  as  radical  mechanism. 
Nevertheless,  radical  finalism  is  untenable  because  it  holds  that  nature 
is  carrying  on  a  foreseen  plan — a  view  which  is  not  verified  in  nature  and 
life. 

Thus  Bergson  sets  aside  radical  mechanism  and  radical  finalism 
because  they  fail  to  take  account  of  the  change  and  duration  which  we 
perceive  to  be  the  very  essence  of  life. 

Bergson  displaces  these  systems  of  thought  with  his  doctrine  of  the 
vital  impetus,  which,  he  admits,  is  allied  with  radical  finalism  in  certain 
respects.    Like   radical   finalism,    his   doctrine   represents   the   entire 

'^Ibid.,p.n. 
'Ubid., -p.  24S. 
"/6«f.,p.  39. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  9 

organized  world  as  a  harmonious  whole.  But  this  harmony  is  not 
perfect  as  is  claimed  by  radical  finalism.  Each  species  and  even  its 
individuals,  deriving  a  certain  impetus  from  the  original  impulsion  of 
life,  tend  to  use  it  for  themselves;  hence  there  arises  universal  conflict. 
Thus  there  is  no  harmony  in  fact,  only  in  principle.  Since  all  the  diver- 
gent streams  of  life  receive  their  impetus  from  a  common  source,  and 
since  they  are  not  actually  in  a  harmonious  relation  with  each  other,  if 
there  is  harmony  at  all  it  is  not  before  but  behind  us.  The  future  is 
unforeseeable  by  us.  For  we  are  in  the  stream  of  life  which  is  growing, 
creating  constantly  new  forms.  These  forms,  however  divergent  they 
may  be  from  each  other,  possess  a  common  thread  which  runs  through 
them  all.  This  common  element  is  the  original  impetus  of  life  which  is 
inmianently  working  out  into  divergent  lines  of  evolution.  By  virtue 
of  this  vital  impetus  there  is  a  harmony  in  the  systems  of  things. 

It  is,  moreover,  the  original  impetus  of  life  working  in  divergent 
directions  of  evolution  that  is  the  fimdamental  cause  of  the  variations 
which  accumulate  to  produce  new  forms  of  life.  While  species,  separating 
from  their  common  stock,  accumulate  differences  as  they  progress  in  their 
evolution,  yet  in  certain  definite  points  they  may  evolve  individually 
the  similar  structures,  for  example,  the  eye  of  mollusks  and  of  verte- 
brates. Such  similar  structures,  contends  Bergson,  cannot  be  accounted 
for  by  the  accidental  variations  of  Darwin  or  the  external  influences  of 
Lamarck.  They  are,  on  the  contrary,  due  to  the  original  impetus  of 
life  that  is  working  in  the  organisms. 

The  evolution  of  life  in  divergent  directions  is  made  possible,  then, 
by  the  vital  impetus.  Now,  what  is  the  nature  of  this  vital  impetus? 
Bergson  does  not  tell  whence  it  came.  He  holds  it  as  the  basic  principle 
of  evolution.  It  is  the  world-principle,  the  cosmic  consciousness.^^ 
But  it  is  not  omnipotent.  Bergson  fully  admits  the  limitations  of  the 
vital  impetus.^  If  the  force  immanent  in  life  were  omnipotent,  it  would 
produce  all  forms  of  existence  at  once;  but  since  it  is  limited,  it  cannot  do 

The  God  of  Bergson  may  be  identified  with  the  \dtal  impetus.  God, 
according  to  Bergson,  is  engaged  in  the  process  of  perpetual  activity.  He 
is  like  a  sheU  shooting  out  forms  of  life  in  many  directions.^  He  does  not 
know  beforehand  the  final  outcome  of  the  process  of  evolution  in  which  he 

21  Ibid.,  pp.  239,  261. 
^  Ibid.,  p.  126. 
^  Ibid.,  pp.  Uli. 
^  Ibid.,  p.  9%. 


10  BEARING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

is  engaged.  There  are,  in  the  evolutionary  process,  accidents,  setbacks, 
deviations,  conflicts,  which  he  must  struggle  to  control.  "God  thus 
defined,"  writes  Bergson,  "has  nothing  of  the  already  made;  He  is 
unceasing  life,  action,  freedom.  "^^  God,  from  the  point  of  view  of  Berg- 
son, then,  is  vitally  related  to  the  forms  of  life,  and  shares  in  their  experi- 
ences of  change,  struggle  and  growth.  Accordingly,  the  God  of  Bergson 
is  not  absolute  but  is  finite  in  his  nature;  and  so  his  relation  to  the  world 
is  expressed  in  terms  of  relativity.  Thus  with  the  surrender  of  all  the 
absolute  characteristics  of  the  central  being  of  reality,  there  is  no  finality, 
no  absoluteness  anywhere;  all  is  reduced  to  the  relativity  of  becoming. 

B.  Essential  Elements  in  the  Evolutionary  Theory 

Typical  inductive  theories  of  evolution  have  briefly  been  outlined. 
It  remains,  at  this  stage  of  our  study,  to  indicate  the  essential  ideas  in  the 
evolutionary  theory. 

1.    The  Idea  of  Change. 

(The  static  view  of  the  world  has  characterized  the  prevailing  philoso- 
phies and  theologies  from  the  classic  period  of  Greek  philosophy  to  our 
time.  The  satisfactions  of  life  have  been  found  in  absolutes,  finaUties, 
immutabihties,  eternities,  fixities.  The  world  of  change,  suffering,  pain, 
conflict  has  been  declared  apparent  and  illusory.  But  from  the  days  of 
Giordano  Bruno  (1548-1600),  and  of  Francis  Bacon  (1561-1626),  another 
view  of  the  world  has  constantly  been  gaining  ground.  Scientists  in  their 
investigations  of  the  natural  phenomena  first  observed  the  movements  of 
planetary  systems,  then  of  the  earth,  and  finally  of  the  organic  world. 
From  the  time  of  Lamarck,  in  particular,  the  organic  world  has  been 
subjected  to  intensive  and  extensive  investigations.  Evidences  have 
been  gathered  from  palaeontology,  geology,  geographical  distribution, 
morphology,  embriology,  to  show  that  there  have  been  going  on  changes 
in  the  world  of  living  beings.  It  is  the  unanimous  opinion  of  biolo- 
gists that  all  the  existing  species  of  plants  and  animals  have  descended 
from  former  generations  of  species,  which  also  descended  from  their 
predecessors,  and  so  on  to  the  time  when  the  protoplasmic  organism 
arose  from  inorganic  matter  in,  as  yet,  an  unknown  manner.  The 
notion  of  descent  with  modifications  is  not  questioned  for  a  moment  by 
biologists.^    Following  this  biological  theory,  Bergson  universalizes  the 

28  Ibid.,  p.  248,  cf.  his  remark  on  God  quoted  by  LeRoy,  The  New  Philosophy  of 
Henri  Bergson,  p.  225. 

2«See,  e.  g.,  Weismann,  The  Evolution  Theory,  I,  p.  3;  DeVries,  Species  and  Varie- 
ties, p.  4;  Kellogg,  op.  cit.,  p.  3;  Lock,  Recent  Progress  in  the  Study  of  Variation,  etc., 
1911,  p.  30;  Geddes-Thomson,  Evolution,  pp.  xf.;  Schmucker,  op.  cit.,  pp.  233  ff. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  U 

idea  of  change  and  makes  it  the  very  essence  of  life.  From  this  point  of 
view,  change  is  not  a  superficial  thing  that  can  be  explained  away  or 
ignored.     For  the  whole  world  as  we  know  it  is  in  the  process  of  change. 

2.  The  Fact  of  Growth. 

Previous  to  the  full  sway  of  organic  science,  evolution  meant  an 
unfoldment  of  something  already  given.  All  systems  of  thought  stood 
for  a  closed  system  of  reality.  Reality  was  held  to  be  ready-made;  so 
it  was  not  subject  to  the  process  of  growth.  Over  against  this  closed 
view  of  reality,  the  modern  theories  which  we  have  considered  hold  to 
actual  growth  in  the  being  of  things  (this  is  particularly  true  of  Bergson). , 
Organic  beings,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  evolutionary  theory,  are  not 
merely  evolving  latent  potentialities,  but  they  are  actually  growing  in 
their  being.  All  the  forms  of  life  have  come  to  be  what  they  are  by  the 
process  of  growth  in  the  content  of  their  being.  Particularly,  it  is  one 
of  the  radical  contentions  of  Bergson  that  there  is  a  real  growth  in  things. 
The  evolution  of  life  means,  for  him,  a  real  increase  in  the  being  of 
things.  ReaUty  is  not  ready-made;  but  it  is  constantly  creating,  becom- 
ing, growing,  adding  to  itself  new  worlds.  While  he  admits  that  there 
are  blind  alleys,  arrests,  setbacks,  and  the  like,  yet  in  the  main  lines  of 
evolution  there  are  real  growth  and  progress.^^ 

3.  Organic  Continuity. 

The  evolutionary  theory  means,  further,  the  continuity  and  soli- 
darity of  organic  beings.  Lamarck  constructed  a  phylogenetic  tree  show- 
ing the  oneness  of  organic  beings.  As  to  the  evolution  of  man  he  suggests 
the  view  that  he  probably  descended  from  some  arboreal  creature  allied 
with  the  apes.  The  enormous  amount  of  inductive  material  accumu- 
lated by  Darwin  in  his  The  Origin  of  Species  vindicates  the  organic 
solidarity  of  all  hving  beings.  In  his  later  book.  The  Descent  of  Man, 
Darwin  attempts  to  show  the  essential  oneness  of  man  with  other  forms 
of  life.  He  accomplishes  this  task  by  a  careful  comparative  analysis  of 
man  with  mammals  and  lower  animals  respecting  their  higher  qualities 
as  well  as  their  physical  characteristics.  He  fully  recognizes  the  differ- 
ences between  man  and  the  animals,  especially,  in  regard  to  the  higher 
qualities  of  man;  but  he  considers  that  there  is  no  fundamental  difference 
between  them.^^  This  belief  is  shared  by  all  the  biological  scientists. 
Bergson  apparently  differs  from  them  in  his  view  of  the  evolution  of  life 
as  taking  place  in  divergent  directions;  and  he  holds  that  in  consequence 
of  this  divergency  the  vegetable,  animal,  and  human  beings  differ  not 

"  Bergson,  op.  cit.,  pp.  251  ff. 
"  The  Descent  of  Man,  p.702. 


12  BEARING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

only  in  degree  but  in  kind.  Yet  he  maintains  the  fundamental  unity  of 
all  the  forms  of  life  by  virtue  of  the  original  impetus;  and  he  fully  ac- 
knowledges the  continuity  of  the  different  lines  of  evolution  once  they  are 
started  by  the  impetus.^^  So  Bergson  is  essentially  one  with  the  biolo- 
gists in  regard  to  the  continuous  solidarity  of  organic  beings. 

This  consensus  of  opinion  held  by  the  biologists  has  frequently  been 
attacked  by  theologians  who  seek  to  introduce  certain  so-called  'breaks* 
into  the  process  of  evolution.  Such  breaks  are  said  to  have  taken  place 
at  the  dawn  of  life,  the  appearance  of  sentiency,  and  the  awakening  of 
consciousness.  Opposition  is  especially  manifest  to  the  inclusion  of  man 
in  the  organic  series.  This  inclusion  seems  to  these  theologians  to 
involve  a  degradation  of  the  dignity  of  man.  But  the  real  motive  of 
their  adherence  to  the  breaks  is  the  wish  to  show  the  hand  of  God  at 
those  particular  points.^^  This  theological  a  priori  assumption,  however, 
is  doomed  in  view  of  the  results  of  the  painstaking  empirical  investiga- 
tions of  biological  science;  and  the  organic  solidarity  of  living  beings  is 
maintained  as  a  scientific  fact. 

4.    Factors  of  the  Evolutionary  Process. 

Do  the  evolutionary  theories  as  a  whole  hold  that  the  processes  of 
change,  growth,  and  continuity  are  effected  by  purely  empirical  factors 
or  by  metempirical  forces?  Are  the  forces  which  make  possible  the 
evolutionary  process  natural  or  supernatural?  or  are  they  both  natural 
and  supernatural?  This  is  a  critical  point  in  the  theory  of  evolution. 
(The  factors  of  evolution  recognized  by  Lamarck  and  Darwin  are,  in 
the  main,  empirical.  These  factors,  according  to  them,  were  given  to 
the  original  forms  of  life  by  the  Supreme  Creator  at  the  very  beginning 
of  the  evolutionary  process.^^  For  both  these  biologists,  God  is  the 
omnipotent  and  omniscient  being  who  created  matter  and  energy  and 
endowed  them  with  the  laws  and  properties  for  all  subsequent  develop- 
ment. God  is  the  first  cause;  but  the  real  factors  of  evolution  are 
secondary  causes.^^  There  are,  however,  many  biologists  who  refuse 
to  bring  in  any  other  factors  than  those  which  they  can  scientifically 
test.^^    Other  biologists,  such  as  Wallace,   are   dissatisfied   with   the 

^Wp.  cit.  Chap.  II,  cf.  Ibid.,  pp.  251-271. 

30  See,  e.g.,  Griffith- Jones,  The  Ascent  through  Christ,  1901,  pp.  26-32,  cf.  Ibid., 
pp.  243  ff . 

31  Packard,  op.  cit.,  p.  374;  Darwin,  The  Origin  of  Species,  p.424. 

'2  Cf.  Jordan  and  Kellogg,  Evolution  and  Animal  Life,  pp.  9  f.,  468  f. 
"  See,  e.  g.,  Kellogg,  op.  cit.,  p.  378;  Henderson,  The  Fitness  of  the  Environment, 
1913,  pp.  305  £f. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  13 

pure  empiricism,  e.  g.,  of  Darwin,  and  bring  in  metempirical  forces.^ 
Bergson  holds  that  the  meehanical  and  accidental  factors  held  by 
the  prevailing  theories  of  evolution  are  inadequate  and  maintains  that 
the  prime  factor  in  the  evolution  of  living  beings  is  the  original  impetus 
of  life.  Briefly  stated,  extra-empirical  factors  are  not  recognized  by 
most  of  the  biologists.  Some  are  dogmatic  on  this  point,  while  others 
take  a  less  dogmatic  attitude.  But  whatever  their  position  respecting 
the  ontological  nature  of  the  factors  of  evolution,  it  is  manifest  that 
they  consider  them  either  externally  or  internally  in  close  relation  to 
the  evolving  organisms.  The  forces  which  carry  on  the  evolutionary 
process  are  held  to  be  immanent  in  the  organisms  and  in  their  environ- 
fnent.  The  ontological  character  of  these  forces  is  subject  to  further 
investigation. 

5.    The  Question  of  Teleology. 

And,  finally,  does  the  evolutionary  theory  hold  that  there  is  purpose 
in  the  process?  This  is  another  mooted  question.  Lamarck  believed 
that  organic  beings  are  tending  from  less  perfect  toward  more  and  more 
perfect  forms.^  Darwin  considered  that  the  organic  evolution  had 
reached  its  summit  in  man;  but  he  refused  to  commit  himself  to  any 
definite  view  as  to  the  ultimate  destiny  of  humanity.^  Bergson  rejects 
radical  mechanism  and  radical  finalism  alike,  but  does  not  deny  that 
there  is  some  sort  of  purpose  in  the  evolutionary  process.^^  In  view  of 
the  fact  that  from  the  standpoint  of  the  evolutionary  theory  the  whole 
organic  world  is  changing  and  growing  and  is  involved  in  accidents, 
setbacks,  and  the  like,  it  cannot  hold  to  an  absolute  teleology  that  must 
be  realized  at  all  cost.  From  its  point  of  view,  if  there  is  teleology  in  the 
process  at  all,  it  is  a  finite,  growing,  changing  teleology  in  the  evolution 
of  fife. 

So  we  may  summarize  the  meaning  of  the  evolutionary  theory  thus: 
It  holds  that  all  the  forms  of  life  are  in  the  process  of  a  continuous 
change  and  growth,  which  is  effected  by  the  forces  immanent  in  the 
organisms  and  in  their  environment,  for  a  limited,  growing,  developiug 
purpose. 

//.     The  Traditional  Conception  of  God 

The  content  and  meaning  of  the  evolutionary  theory  have  been  out- 
lined. But  in  order  to  see  the  issues  called  forth  by  the  theory  we  must 
now  note  the  essentials  of  the  traditional  conception  of  God. 

3*  Wallace,  op.  cit.,  Chap.  V;  Simpson,  The  Spiritual  Interpretation  of  Nature, 
pp.  254  fif.,  277  fF.;  Schmucker,  op.  cit.,  Chap.  XDC. 
^  Packard,  op.  cit.,  pp.  323,  345  f. 
^  The  Descent  of  Man,  pp.  702  ff. 
"  Op.  cit.,  pp.  265  ff. 


14  BEARING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

1.     God  as  the  Supernatural  Personality. 

The  dominant  characteristic  of  all  systems  of  orthodoxy  is  super- 
naturalism.  Essential  are  a  supernatural  creation,  supernatural  revela- 
tion, supernatural  Christ,  and  a  supernatural  salvation.  Consequently 
God  is  essentially  separate  from  the  world  of  nature  and  of  man  and  is 
beyond  the  power  of  natural  human  knowledge.  Indeed,  God  as  the 
supernatural  Being  is  the  absolutely  indispensable  foundation  of  the 
orthodox  system .^^  The  world- view  underlying  this  conception  of  God 
is  a  philosophy  which  divides  reality  into  two  realms:  a  natural  and  a 
supernatural.  In  accordance  with  this  view  man  and  other  finite  beings 
belong  to  the  natural  realm,  while  God  and  his  messengers  belong  to  the 
supernatural.  The  connection  between  the  two  realms  is  effected  by 
means  of  the  supernatural  acts  of  God. 

The  emphasis,  then,  in  this  conception  of  God  is  placed  upon  his 
specific  deeds  in  his  relation  to  the  world.  The  acts  of  God,  however, 
are  not  altogether  normal,  that  is,  such  as  we  observe  in  the  processes  of 
nature  and  man,  but  they  are  supernatural.  He  mysteriously  decreed 
in  past  eternity  his  relation  to  and  the  course  of  the  world;  he  miracu- 
lously created  the  world  out  of  nothing;  he  made  revelation  of  himself 
in  a  supernatural  book;  he  miraculously  sent  his  only  begotten  son  into 
the  world  to  accomplish  the  plan  of  salvation  for  the  elect.^^  What  is 
all  important  for  orthodoxy  is  supernaturalism  in  the  activities  of  God 
in  his  relation  to  the  world.  Accordingly,  therefore,  orthodoxy  maintains 
its  belief  in  the  miraculous  acts  of  God."*^  Now  it  is  this  insistence  on  the 
supematuralness  of  God's  acts  that  leads  orthodox  theologians  to  oppose 
the  modern  doctrine  of  evolution.  They  cannot  see  the  hand  of  God  in 
the  gradual  process  of  evolution;  if  there  be  a  God,  he  must  be  known  by 
his  miraculous  deeds.  To  hold  that  the  world  and  man  have  come  to  be 
what  they  are  by  the  process  of  a  slow  and  gradual  evolution  means 
atheism.^^  It  should  be  noted  that  their  opposition  to  the  evolutionary 
theory  is  due  to  the  desire  to  maintain  intact  the  finality  of  their  system 
deducable  from  the  infallible  scripture  which  is  given  by  the  transcen- 
dent, supernatural  God,  and  to  furnish  a  positive  basis  of  assurance  to 

^*  See  Greene,  The  Supernatural,  in  Princeton  Biblical  and  Theological  Studies, 
pp.  142  ff. 

39  See  Hodge,  Systematic  Theology,  I,  p.  535  ff.,  550  ff.,  151  ff.;  II,  pp.  378  ff.; 
Shedd,  Dogmatic  Theology,  I,  pp.  393  ff.,  61  ff.;  Strong,  Systematic  Theology,  I,  pp.  353 
ff.;  II,  pp.  371  ff.;  I,  HI  ff.;  II,  669  ff.,  etc. 

40 Hodge,  op.  cit.,  I,  617  ff.;  Shedd,  op.  cit.,  I,  533  ff.;  Strong,  op.  cit.,  II,  431  ff. 

"  See  Hodge,  op.  cit.,  II,  11  ff.;  Shedd,  op.  cit.,  I,  499  ff. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  15 

men  that  God  is  powerful  to  perform  even  miraculous  deeds,  if  necessary, 
for  their  ultimate  victory.  So  God  must  necessarily  be  conceived  of  as 
the  supernatural  personality,  who  expresses  his  relation  to  the  world  by 
means  of  supernatural  acts. 

2.     God  as  the  Absolute  Being. 

This  is  the  philosophic  view  of  God,  which  orthodoxy  holds  along 
with  its  conception  of  him  as  a  specific,  supernatural  person,  who  mani- 
fests himself  in  concrete  acts.  God,  who  is  conceived  of  as  a  transcen- 
dent personality  in  popular  Christianity,  is  given,  in  the  philosophical 
view  of  him,  metaphysical  attributes.  Philosophically  viewed,  God  is  the 
ultimate  reaUty,  the  source  and  ground  of  all  that  exists.  God  so  con- 
ceived possesses  such  attributes  as  spirituality,  infinity,  perfection,  per- 
sonaUty,  immutability,  and  the  like.^  God  as  such  corresponds  to  the 
Idea  of  ideas  of  Plato,  the  Form  of  forms  of  Aristotle,  the  mystical  One 
and  the  Good  in  Plotinus.  The  moral  aspects  of  these  ideas  of  Gk)d  are 
expressed  in  the  conception  that  he  is  eternally  complete  and  perfect) 
This  notion  of  God  as  immutable  and  static  in  his  perfection  is  based 
upon  the  substance  philosophy  which  formed  the  fundamental  presuj>- 
position  of  Greek  theology.^  Every  effort  is  made  to  maintain  the 
absoluteness  of  God  from  the  limitations  of  time,  (^he  eternity  of  God 
means  that  he  is  above  the  time  and  succession  which  are  charac- 
teristics of  our  consciousness.  We  do  not  know  how  a  God  who  is  a 
conscious  personahty  could  be  timeless  in  his  thinking,  but  he  neverthe- 
less is  free  from  time.**  Moreover,  God  is  exalted  above  all  the  causes 
and  possibiUties  of  change.  He  is  absolutely  immutable  in  his  essence, 
attributes  and  purpose.*^  With  this  insistence  of  traditional  theology 
on  the  absoluteness  of  God  goes  also  its  desire  to  retain  the  finaHty  of  its 
system.  The  absoluteness  of  the  divine  revelation,  the  uniqueness  of 
Christ,  the  completeness  of  Christianity,  all  stand  or  faU  with  the  doc- 
trine of  the  absoluteness  of  God.  So  God  is  held  as  the  absolute  being. 
(The  absoluteness  of  God,  from  the  point  of  view  of  orthodoxy,  does  not 
signify  that  he  embraces  the  whole  of  reaUty — Hodge,  op.  cit.,  I,  382  f.). 

In  brief  these  two  elements — God  as  the  supernatural  personahty 
and  absolute  being — constitute  the  basic  ideas  in  the  traditional  con- 
ception of  God.  They  represent  man's  practical  ethico-reHgious  and 
philosophical  interests,  traceable,  respectively,  to  the  Hebrew  and  Greek 

«  Strong,  op.  cit.,  I,  p.  248. 

*^  For  the  emphasis  upon  the  substance  idea  of  God,  see  Hodge,  op.  cit.,  I,  367  S. 

« Ibid.,  385  ff . 

*^Ibid.,  390  f.;  Shedd,  op.  cit.,  I,  351  f. 


16  BEARING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

influences  in  theology.  Orthodox  theologians,  such  as  Hodge  and  Shedd, 
start  with  God  as  the  ultimate  reality,  the  metaphysical  source  and 
ground  of  the  universe;  but  they  lay  most  stress  on  the  idea  of  God  as 
the  supernatural,  transcendent  person,  who  governs  the  world  of  nature 
and  of  man  by  means  of  specific,  miraculous  acts  and  interventions. 
God  as  a  cosmic  principle  is  too  remote  and  colorless  to  satisfy  the  moral 
and  reHgious  needs  of  man,  so  that  the  chief  emphasis  has  been  placed 
on  the  view  of  God  as  the  supreme  sovereign  who  manifests  his  relation 
to  the  world  and  man  in  particular  deeds  and  acts  of  supernaturalistic 
character.  Still  the  philosophical  view  of  God  reached  by  means  of 
human  reason  is  not  ignored;  it  is  held  to  satisfy  the  speculative  interests 
of  man.  So  these  two  views  of  God  are  maintained  together  as  the 
fundamental  constituents  in  the  traditional  conception  of  God.^ 

This  thoroughgoing  supernaturalistic  conception  of  God  is  wholly 
opposed  to  the  theological  implications  of  the  evolutionary  theory.  For 
this  theory  implies  that  if  there  be  a  God,  he  must  be  not  only  vitally 
related  with  the  forms  of  life  but  also  be  orderly  and  gradual  in  the 
method  of  his  activity;  and  furthermore  that  such  a  God  must  be  held 
to  be  actually  himself  involved  in  the  process  of  change  and  growth. 
But  such  an  evolutionary  conception  of  God  is  repugnant  to  orthodoxy. 
Hence  there  arise  many  problems  in  the  attempt  to  bring  the  traditional 
conception  of  God  into  relation  with  the  evolutionary  theory.  These 
problems  we  have  yet  to  state  in  the  following  section. 

///.     The  Problems  Involved  in  the  Relation  between  the  Evolutionary 
Theory  and  the  Traditional  Conception  of  God 

1.    The  Problem  of  Method. 

Manifestly  the  method  as  to  how  we  may  reach  and  formulate  the 
conception  of  God  is  a  great  question  which  needs  to  be  settled.  The 
method  followed  by  science  in  the  construction  of  the  evolutionary 
theory  is  antithetical  to  that  used  by  traditional  theology  in  formulating 
its  conception  of  God:  the  former  employs  the  inductive,  empirical 
method;  the  latter,  the  a  priori,  revelation  method.  The  one  outstand- 
ing characteristic  of  the  evolutionary  theories  examined  above  is  that 
they  are  formulated  as  result  of  more  or  less  careful  inductive  study  of 
the  processes  in  organic  world.  (One  may  question  this  statement  with 
respect  to  the  theory  of  Bergson.  It  should,  however,  be  replied  that 
Bergson,  too,  set  forth  his  theory  of  evolution  after  years  of  investigation 
in  the  field  of  organic  evolution).    But  it  is  quite  otherwise  with  tradi- 

^  See,  e.  g.,  Hodge,  op.  cit.,  I,  366. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  17 

tional  theology.  It  maintains  that  God  has  made  his  final  revelation 
in  the  scripture.  Its  conception  of  God  is  obtained  by  a  systematic 
analysis  of  the  content  of  this  revelation,  for  in  it  there  is  given  once  for 
all  the  true  nature  of  God."*^  Which  method,  now,  should  be  used  in 
the  formulation  of  the  conception  of  God?  This  is  a  critical  problem, 
for  on  its  solution  depends  largely  the  character  of  our  conception  of 
God.     (This  will  appear  in  the  course  of  our  study.) 

2.  The  Problem  of  the  Relation  between  Science  and  Theology. 
This  problem  has  already  been  implied  in  the  preceding  one.     But 

the  question  of  the  relation  of  science  to  theology  involves  also  a  meta- 
physical problem,  i.  e..  Can  the  afiSrmations  of  science  be  held  as  the 
final  word  on  the  ontological  realities  with  which  theology  deals,  or  must 
theolog>'  hold  that  there  is  more  to  reality  than  is  revealed  by  science? 
Traditional  theology,  having  an  infallible  and  authoritative  source  for 
its  affirmations,  does  not  make  any  real  use  of  the  results  of  scientific 
investigation.  This  dogmatism  of  traditional  orthodoxy  has  been 
polemically  transferred  to  what  Perry  calls  naive,  uncritical  naturalism.'*^ 
Such  naturalism  declares  that  it  has  the  last  word  on  the  matter  of 
reaHty;  it  claims  that  what  it  discovers  by  means  of  its  inductive  method 
is  all  there  is  to  reaUty.  For  it,  cosmic  substance,  cosmic  energy,  eternal 
matter,  mechanical  causality  are  all  that  there  are  in  the  world  of  reality, 
and  all  the  facts  of  human  life  are  explicable  in  terms  of  these  sub-human 
entities.  Shall  these  two  dogmatisms  be  allowed  to  continue,  or  must 
we  seek  for  a  reconciliation  between  them?  If  we  accept  the  latter 
alternative,  how  can  they  be  reconciled?  The  solution  of  this  problem 
has  a  close  relation  to  the  content  of  the  conception  of  God.'*^ 

3.  The  Problem  of  God  as  the  Supernatural,  Transcendent  Per- 
sonality. 

The  traditional  conception  of  God,  following  the  dualistic  view  of 
the  universe  and  political  analogies,  holds  that  he  is  the  sovereign  person 
who  has  determined  the  course  of  the  world  and  who  expresses  his  relation 
to  it  in  specific  supernatural  acts.  The  duaUstic  philosophy,  on  which 
this  view  of  God  is  based,  has  been  undermined  by  the  discovery  of  the 
Copernican  astronomy.  Kant  has  shown  in  his  Critique  oj  Pure 
Reason  that  we  can  never  know  a  God  who  exists  all  by  himself.  The 
evolutionary  theories  do  not  know  any  other  world  than  this  where  the 
forces  which  carry  on  the  evolution  of  life  are  immanent  in  the  organisms 

"  E.  g.,  Hodge,  op.  ciL,  I,  182  f.,  364. 

*«  Perry,  Present  Philosophical  Tendencies,  Chap.  IV. 

*"  See  Perry,  op.  cit.,  Chap.  V,  Religion  and  the  Limits  of  Science. 


18  BEARING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

and  in  their  environment.  These  theories  know  no  such  supernatural 
interventions  from  an  unknown  realm  of  reahty  into  the  course  of  evolu- 
tion, as  are  essential  to  the  traditional  conception  of  God.  Thus  is 
raised  the  problem  of  the  transcendence  or  immanence  of  God.  Is  God 
organically  connected  with  the  life-process  or  only  occasionally  by 
miraculous  interventions?  If  one  is  forced  to  surrender  the  trans- 
cendence of  God  in  the  traditional  sense,  what  sort  of  transcendence 
can  be  held?  Or  if  one  must  conceive  of  God  in  terms  of  immanence, 
what  should  be  done  with  the  concept  of  God's  personality?  Such  is 
the  problem  called  forth  by  the  evolutionary  theory  in  view  of  the  tradi- 
tional conception  of  God  as  the  transcendent,  supernatural  personality. 
This  is  closely  connected  with  the  next  and  the  other  problem  to  be 
mentioned. 

4.  The  Problem  of  God  as  the  Absolute  Being. 

The  traditional  conception  of  God  holds  to  the  view  of  him  as  the 
absolute.  It  conceives  of*  God  in  terms  of  completeness,  perfection, 
immutabiUty.  The  absoluteness  of  God  from  the  exigencies  of  time 
and  history  is  tenaciously  maintained.  But  in  our  examination  of  the 
meaning  of  the  evolutionary  theory  we  discovered,  among  others,  the 
two  essential  elements,  change  and  growth,  which  are  held  as  charac- 
teristic of  the  forms  of  life.  As  human  life  with  other  forms  of  life  are 
considered  to  be  engaged  in  the  processes  of  change  and  growth,  these 
characteristics  of  life  are  applied  to  all  the  sciences  and  institutions 
concerned  with  the  interests  of  life.  Not  only  social  institutions  change 
and  grow  but  also  their  ideals.  Not  only  do  ethical  ideas  and  ideals 
change  from  one  age  to  the  other,  but  also  the  content  of  moral  conduct 
changes  and  grows.  So  does  philosophy  change  and  grow.  And  religion 
is  not  exempt  from  this  process  of  change  and  development.  Both  its 
expressions  and  content  change  and  have  history.  Thus  the  idea  that 
things  have  history  and  so  change  from  age  to  age  has  penetrated  into 
all  the  aspects  of  human  Hfe.  Absolutes,  finaUties,  eternities,  perfections 
are  not  found  anywhere  in  the  realm  of  man.  Do  they  exist  beyond  the 
human  sphere?  Is  God  free  from  change  and  growth?  All  admit  that 
our  ideas  of  God  have  changed  from  the  days  of  primitive  man.  But  do 
change  and  growth  hold  true  only  of  the  conceptions  of  God,  and  not 
of  the  object  of  the  conceptions?  Is  God  absolute  or  is  he  in  any  sense 
finite?  This  is  the  most  critical  problem  which  needs  to  be  carefully 
considered. 

5.  The  Problem  of  God's  Relation  to  the  World  and  Man. 
The  traditional  conception  of  God  holds  that  God  created  the  world 

out  of  nothing  through  the  fiat  of  his  sovereign  will.    But  our  astronomi- 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  19 

cal  and  geological  sciences  tell  us  that  it  has  taken  millions  of  years  to 
produce  the  world  as  we  have  it.  All  the  forms  of  life  have  come  to  be 
through  the  process  of  change  and  growth.  The  theories  of  evolution, 
then,  reduce  existing  things  to  so  small  and  insignificant  beginnings  that 
the  creation  of  these  seems  scarcely  worthy  of  the  supreme  being.  What 
then  shall  be  done  with  the  traditional  doctrine  of  creation?  Further- 
more, what  view  should  be  taken  of  the  orthodox  doctrine  of  divine 
providence?  According  to  this  doctrine,  God  has  the  sovereign  control 
of  all  things,  and  he  is  working  out,  by  supernatural  means,  a  prede- 
termined, absolute  plan  for  the  world.  But  is  he  actually  governing  the 
world  in  accordance  with  his  plan?  Are  there  not  things  in  the  world 
which  seem  to  be  defeating  such  a  divine  plan?  This  is  notably  the  case 
with  the  undeniable  fact  of  evil.  Are  evils  in  the  world  merely  negations 
of  the  good?  Are  they  incidents  in  the  process  of  evolution?  Are  the 
evils  in  the  world  there  because  God  could  not  prevent  them?  Or  are 
there  actually  evil  forces  independent  of  God's  control?  Must  we 
accept  the  orthodox  solution  and  say  that  God  is  not  an  efl&cient  cause 
of  the  evils  but  permits  them  to  exist? 

And  what  should  be  said  of  God's  relation  to  man?  Traditional 
theology  holds  that  man  is  a  creation  of  God,  but,  since  his  fall,  he  is 
totally  destitute  of  all  high  values;  and  hence  he  is  wholly  dependent  on 
God  for  obtaining  the  lost  righteousness  and  dignity.  From  this  point 
of  view,  man  has  no  initiative,  no  real  freedom;  but  God  is  all  in  all. 
The  evolutionary  theory,  however,  teaches  that  the  forces  which  make 
possible  the  on-going  of  evolution  are  resident  in  the  evolving  organisms 
and  their  environment.  Are  the  powers  that  enable  human  life  to 
change  and  develop  wholly  of  God  or  of  man?  Or  are  God  and  men 
mutually  cooperating  to  achieve  higher  values  in  life?  This  opens  up 
the  larger  question  of  God's  relation  to  social  progress.  Positivistic 
philosophers  maintain  that  the  movements  of  social  progress  are  due 
to  the  workings  of  human  social  forces.  Orthodoxy,  on  the  other  hand, 
holds  that  they  are  of  God.     Which  view  should  be  accepted? 

The  above  constitute  the  essential  problems  involved  in  bringing 
together  the  evolutionary  theory  and  traditional  conception  of  God. 
We  shall  now  turn  to  the  typical  attempts  at  their  solution. 


20  BEARING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 


PART  TWO 

Typical  Recent  Solutions  of  the  Problems  Involved  in  the  Rela- 
tion BETWEEN  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY  AND  THE  TRADITIONAL 

Conception  of  God 

We  shall  not  deal,  in  this  section,  with  present-day  treatises  on  s^'ste- 
matic  theology.  For  these  either  ignore  the  problems  raised  by  the 
evolutionary  theory,  or  else  refuse  seriously  to  face  the  issues  involved. 
This  is  the  case,  in  the  main,  with  all  systems  both  of  Catholicism  and 
Protestant  orthodoxy.^  Some  theologians  do,  indeed,  recognize  the 
difficulties  raised  by  the  doctrine  of  evolution  and  make  efforts  at  their 
solution;  but  in  such  efforts  their  chief  interest  is  to  preserve  the  tradi- 
tional conception  of  God.  This  attitude  is  characteristic  of  certain 
liberal  interpretations  of  orthodoxy.^  Other  writers  are  much  influenced 
by  the  evolutionary  theory  and  apply  the  theory  to  the  history  of  reli- 
gions, but  as  yet  have  not  worked  out  a  doctrine  of  God  from  their 
evolutionary  point  of  view.  This  is  true,  in  a  limited  sense,  of  Catho- 
lic Modernism;^  and  more  particularly  of  the  Religions geschichtliche 
Schule.  ^  For  any  profound  appreciation,  then,  of  our  problem,  we  must 
turn  to  philosophers  rather  than  to  professional  theologians.  In  this 
study  we  shall  concern  ourselves  with  the  solutions  worked  out  in  typical 
recent  philosophies  of  religion,  namely,  Royce's  Absolute  Realism, 
Eucken's  Philosophy  of  Life,  Bowne's  Personal  Idealism,  and  James's 
Pragmatism.     For  all  the  advocates  of  these  systems  of  thought  recognize 

1  See  Wilhelm  and  Scannell,  A  Manual  of  Catholic  Theology,  I,  pp.  158-256,  358- 
427;  Hodge,  op.  cit.,  I,  366  ff.,  II,  3  &.;  Shedd,  op.  cit.,  I,  151-546;  Princeton  Biblical 
and  Theological  Studies,  1912,  pp.  136-207;  for  Ritschlian  theology,  see  Kaftan,  Dog- 
matik,  Freiburg,  1897,  pp.  161-189,  231-241;  Wendt,  System  der  Christlichen  Lehre, 
Gottingen,  1906,  I,  82-122,  133-161;  and  Haering,  The  Christian  Faith,  Eng.  tr.,  1913, 
I,  315-363,  II,  499-513;  for  Positive  theology,  see  Seeberg,  The  Fundamental  Truths 
of  the  Christian  Religion,  Eng.  tr.,  1908,  pp.  135-172;  and  Forsyth,  Positive  Preaching 
and  Modern  Mind,  pp.  41-72,  199-290. 

2  See,  e.  g.,  Clark,  An  Outline  of  Christian  Theology,  1903,  pp.  63-161,  The  Christian 
Doctrine  of  God;  Brown,  Christian  Theology  in  Outline,  1907,  pp.  81-298;  and  King, 
Reconstruction  in  Theology,  1901,  Chaps,  V  ff. 

3  See  Tyrrell,  The  Programme  of  Modernism,  1908;  and  Loisy,  The  Gospel  and  the 
Church,  1903,  pp.  1-22,  180-225. 

*See  Troeltsch,  Die  Absolutheit  des  Christentums  und  die  Religions geschichte, 
Tubingen,  1912,  The  Dogmatics  of  the  " ReligionsgeschichtHche  Schule,"  A.  Jour. 
Theol.,  Jan.,  1913;  Empiricism  and  Platonism  in  the  Philosophy  of  Religion,  Harvard 
Theol.  Rev.,  Oct.  1912;  Miller,  The  Teaching  of  Ernst  Troeltsch,  Harvard  Theol. 
Rev.,  VI,  426-450;  and  Bousset,  \Miat  is  Religion?     1907. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  21 

the  inadequacy  of  the  traditional  conception  of  God.  They  are  fully 
conscious  of  the  problems  raised  by  modem  scientific  concepts,  including 
the  evolutionary  theory,  and  make  critical  attempts  to  solve  the  problems. 

/.     The  Solution  of  the  Problems  in  Royce's  Absolute  Idealism. 

The  classic  modem  foraiulator  of  absolute  idealism  is  Hegel.  He 
defined  reaUty  in  terms  of  logical  processes  of  thought,  and  reached  the 
concept  of  a  philosophic  absolute  which  he  made  equivalent  to  the  God  of 
Christianity.  Among  the  recent  representatives  of  this  general  system  of 
thought,  who  are  interested  in  the  rehgious  problems,  are  such  men  as 
Otto  Pfleiderer,  John  and  Edward  Caird,  T.  H.  Green,  John  Watson, 
R.  J.  Campbell,  W.  DeW.  Hyde,  G.  A.  Gordon,  and  Josiah  Royce. 
Among  absolute  idealists  Royce  has  kept  most  abreast  of  modem  scien- 
tific movements,  and  has  endeavored  to  construct  his  conception  of  God 
in  the  light  of  these.  The  essential  features  of  his  system  are  that  the 
ultimate  reaUty  of  the  world  is  an  all-inclusive  Mind  or  Spirit;  that  all 
finite  forms  of  existence  are  manifestations  of  the  fundamental  reahty; 
that  this  reality  and  finite  spirits  are  organically  related;  that,  therefore, 
when  we  discover  the  laws  of  our  thought  and  volition,  we  know  the 
nature  of  the  ultimate  reality;  and  that  when  we  reach  this  reality,  the 
absolute,  it  becomes  the  criterion  of  our  thought  and  all  our  evaluations.^ 
With  this  general  remark  we  proceed  to  our  immediate  task. 
1.     Royce's  Conception  of  God. 

(1)     The  Method  of  Royce. 

The  fundamental  philosophical  and  religious  task  of  Royce  is  to  get 
from  our  finite  point  of  view  over  to  that  of  an  absolute,  so  that  the 
latter  shall  determine  all  the  activities  and  values  of  our  life.  The 
method  followed  by  him  in  working  out  this  task  is  a  method  which 
analyzes  the  processes  of  human  social  consciousness.  Former  neo- 
Hegelians,  for  example,  J.  Caird,  used  a  rigidly  individuahstic  method. 
But  Royce,  especially  in  recent  years,  makes  use  of  the  principles  of 
social  psychology.  (This  is  very  marked  in  his  recent  work,  The  Problem  of 
Christianity).  His  method,  however,  is  essentially  identical  with  that 
of  his  predecessors;  for  his  primary  object  is  to  ascertain  the  thought 
processes  of  social  mind.  He  is  confident  that,  through  this  analysis  of 
the  logical  processes  of  social  mind,  he  can  get  at  the  heart  of  reality. 
This  intellectualistic  procedure  of  Royce  is  consonant  with  his  assump- 
tion that  the  finite  thought-process  and  infinite  thought-process  are 

6  Royce,  The  World  and  the  Individual,  I,  42,  127,  181,  394,  426;  cf.  J.  Card,  An 
Introduction  to  the  Philosophy  of  Religion,  pp.  229,  233  ff.,  245,  252. 


22  BEARING  or  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

organically  related,  and  that  the  former  mirrors  the  latter.^  This  is  the 
method  which  Royce  employs  to  derive  his  conception  of  God.  He 
depends  neither  upon  an  objective  revelation  nor  on  the  inclinations  of 
subjective  feeling,  but  he  completely  trusts  in  the  power  of  human 
thought,  whether  individual  or  social,  to  ascertain  the  nature  of  God. 
What  then  is  the  character  of  God  reached  by  the  use  of  this  dialectic 
method?    This  we  must  proceed  to  ascertain. 

(2)     The  Content  of  Royce's  Conception  of  God. 

i.      God  as  the  Absolute  Being. 

God  as  the  absolute  Being  reconciles  the  antinomy  between  the  two 
aspects  of  our  experience — thought  and  fact.  Our  experience,  accord- 
ing to  Royce,  comes  to  us  as  sheer  light  and  shade,  sound  and  silence, 
pain  and  grief,  all  intermingled.  But  we  have  in  the  depth  of,  our 
experience  ideas  or  attempts  to  give  meaning  to  these  sheer  facts.  As  a 
sum  total  of  these  ideas  we  have  thought.  This  thought  and  the  facts 
of  experience  are  in  conflict  with  each  other..  To  escape  this  antithesis 
we  long  for  a  reality  which  shall  reconcile  these  two  phenomena  of  our 
life.  This  reality  is  found  in  God  the  Absolute  Being;  for  in  him  there 
is  no  conflict  between  fact  and  thought.'^ 

The  fundamental  significance  of  God  as  the  Absolute  Being,  then, 
according  to  Royce,  is  found  in  the  thought  of  him  as  the  objective 
fulfilment,  in  final  form,  of  the  internal  meaning  of  all  our  finite  ideas 
or  thoughts.  This  view  of  God  is  reached  through  a  critical  analysis 
of  the  meaning  of  Being  and  the  conditions  of  true  ideas.  After  a 
critical  examination  and  rejection  of  the  theories  of  Being  held  by 
Realism,  Mysticism,  and  Critical  Rationalism,^  Royce  develops  his 
theory  of  Being.  This  is  determined  by  his  conception  of  the  meaning 
of  an  idea.  An  idea,  according  to  Royce,  possesses  two  meanings — ^an 
internal  and  external.  The  internal  meaning  of  an  idea  is  the  expression 
of  a  specific  purpose.  The  external  meaning  of  an  idea  is  found  in  a 
specific  object  which  is  willed  to  be  the  idea's  object.^  The  internal 
meanings  of  ideas  are  at  first  vaguely  embodied  in  their  objects;  but 
gradually  they  gain  in  clearness;  and  any  ideas  are  true  when  they  are 
embodied  completely  in  their  ultimate  objects.  Any  idea  is  true  when 
even  in  its  vagueness,  it  corresponds  "  to  its  final  and  completely  individ- 
ual expression. "i'^    From  this  follows  Royce's  theory  of  Being:  ^'What 

«  The  World  and  the  Individual,  I,  8,  424  ff. 
7  Ibid.,  I,  55  ff. 

^Ibid.,  I,  62  ff.,  103  ff.,  137,  181,  196  ff. 
Ubid.,  I,  24  ff.,  325,  327,  329,  331,  337. 
"/Wi.,p.  339. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  23 

is,  or  what  is  real,  is  as  such  the  complete  embodiment,  in  individual  form 
and  in  final  fulfilment,  of  the  internal  meaning  of  finite  ideas. "^^  This 
Being  is  something  Other  than  themselves  which  finite  ideas  seek. 
They  seek  a  Being  which,  when  found,  would  end  all  their  doubts, 
feeing,  for  Royce,  then,  is  not  something  independent  of  finite  ideas, 
not  the  Immediate  of  Mysticism,  nor  the  vaUdity  of  ideas  as  held  by 
Critical  RationaUsm;  it  is,  on  the  contrary,  the  ultimately  individual 
embodiment  of  the  object  of  all  finite  ideas.  To  summarize  in  his  words, 
Being  is  *'  (1)  a  complete  expression  of  the  internal  meaning  of  the  finite 
idea  with  which,  in  any  case,  we  start  our  quest;  (2)  a  complete  fulfilment 
of  the  will  or  purpose  partially  embodied  in  this  idea;  (3)  an  individual 
life  for  which  no  other  can  be  substituted.  ...  It  is  an  individual 
life,  present  as  a  whole.  .  .  .  This  life  is  at  once  a  system  of  facts,  and 
the  fulfilment  of  whatever  purpose  any  finite  idea,  in  so  far  as  it  is  true 
to  its  own  meaning,  already  fragmentarily  embodies.  This  life  is  the 
completed  wiU,  as  well  as  the  completed  experience,  corresponding  to 
the  will  and  experience  of  any  one  finite  idea."^^  Such  a  complete  life  is 
conclusive  of  all  search  for  perfection  which  every  finite  idea  seeks. 
When  we  reach  this  Being  in  its  ultimate,  individual  life,  we  can  lay  aside 
all  ifs,  thens,  validities,  and  the  rest;  because  all  our  seekings  and  troubles 
will  then  be  at  an  end.  Such  a  Being  is  a  world  in  which  the  meanings 
of  all  our  finite  ideas  and  experiences  are  completely  expressed.  Such  a 
Being,  such  a  world  of  experience,  is  God.  "  Since  this  one  world  of 
expression  is  a  life  of  experience  fulfilling  ideas,  it  possesses  precisely  the 
attributes  which  the  ages  have  most  associated  with  the  name  of  God. 
For  God  is  the  Absolute  Being,  and  the  perfect  fulness  of  life.  .  .  . 
In  God  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  Being."  ^^ 

ii.     God  as  the  All-inclusive  Consciousness. 

This  conception  of  God  as  the  cosmic  consciousness,  possessing  a 
knowledge  of  all  things  in  their  wholeness,  is  already  impUed  in  the 
foregoing  view  of  him  as  the  Absolute  Being.  Royce  holds  that  his 
theory  of  Bemg  as  the  ultimate  fulfilment  of  the  meanings  of  all  finite 
ideas  involves  the  unity  of  all  knowing  process.  From  this  point  of 
view  he  proceeds  to  show  that  there  is  one  all-inclusive  consciousness 
embracing  all  finite  consciousnesses,  and  that  this  cosmic  consciousness  is 
God.     Whatever  is,  according  to  Royce,  is  consciously  known  either 

''Ibid.,  p.  339. 
^/^^w/.,  p.  341. 
"^  Ibid.,  pp.  3^9  i. 


24  BEARING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

by  US  or  by  an  all-inclusive  knower  as  fulfilment  of  some  finite  idea.^'* 
The  meanings  of  our  finite  ideas  find  only  a  partial  fulfilment  in  our 
experience — consciousness.  These  partially  fulfilled  meanings  of  our 
experience  are  completely  and  finally  fulfilled  in  a  cosmic  experience. 
The  world  of  individual  experiences  exists  in  relations.  These  relations 
are  known  to  us  only  partially,  but  they  are  known  as  a  whole  to  a  cosmic 
consciousness.  Our  social  experience  accepts,  as  real,  minds,  the  past 
and  future.  But  they  are  real  only  as  they  are  known  to  a  universal 
consciousness.  Our  individual  and  social  experiences  are  fragmentary 
and  chaotic.  These  fragmentary  experiences  are  completely  present  to 
an  all-inclusive  knower.  Such  a  cosmic  knower  is  God.  For  he  is  the 
Omniscient  Being,  who  possesses  an  absolute  unity  of  thought  and 
experience.  This  Omniscient  Being,  God,  finds  present  before  him  all 
things  not  as  result  of  fragmentary  and  gradually  completed  process  of 
inquiry,  but  directly  and  all  at  once.  For  such  a  God  there  are  no 
problems;  all  things  are  present  before  him  completely  solved.  All  our 
experiences  are  fragmentary  and  partial,  but  the  Omniscient  Being  or 
God  has  an  absolute  experience,  in  fact  he  is  the  Absolute  Experience.^ 
That  such  an  Absolute  Experience  exists  is  shown  in  the  very  fragmen- 
tariness  of  our  experience,  which  implies  the  existence  of  an  Absolute 
Experience,^^  We  find  the  significance  of  our  existence  in  the  Absolute 
Experience  which  comprehends  all  our  strivings,  tasks,  purposes  as  com- 
pletely fulfilled.  In  such  an  Experience  we  are  eternally  at  home.^' 
To  this  God,  the  Absolute  Experience  or  Cosmic  Consciousness,  Royce 
assigns  the  attribute  of  personality,  which  is  defined  in  terms  of  an  all- 
inclusive  consciousness.^^  In  his  recent  work.  The  Problem  of  Christi- 
anityj  Royce  conceives  of  God  as  the  Universal  Interpreter.^^  So  Royce 
conceives  of  God  in  terms  of  an  absolute  experience  or  cosmic  conscious- 
ness. 

iii.     God  as  the  Absolute  Moral  Will. 

So  far  we  have  considered  Royce's  view  of  God  as  the  Absolute 
Being  and  Experience.  In  these  views  of  God  there  is  also  involved 
the  idea  of  him  as  the  Absolute  Moral  Will.  But  in  this  idea  of  God 
we  see  particularly  the  voluntaristic  element  in  Royce's  system.    That 

'^  Ibid.,  p.  396. 

^^  Royce,  The  Conception  of  God,  pp.  1  Q. 

i«/6zrf.,  pp.  31ff. 

"  The  World  and  the  Individual,  I,  427. 

18  Op.  cit.,  II,  418  a. 

i»  II,  p.  324,  cf.  ibid.,  373  ff.,  296. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  25 

God  is  the  Absolute  Will  is  seen  in  the  fact  that  to  be  means  to  fulfil  in 
final,  individual  expression  the  only  purpose,  the  Absolute  Purpose.^o 
This  Absolute  Purpose  is  not  an  abstraction,  but  it  is  infinitely  complex; 
so  that  its  unity  is  a  unity  of  many  Wills,  each  of  which  finds  its  final 
expression  in  an  all-embracing  Will — Godi  The  expression  of  this  Abso- 
lute Purpose  is  both  temporal  and  eternal.  But  these  two  expressions 
are  completely  unified  in  the  Absolute  Will. 

A  special  problem  for  Royce  to  solve,  in  this  connection,  is  whether 
this  God  who  is  declared  the  Absolute  Will  can  be  conceived  of  as  moral. 
Royce  maintains  the  view  that  God  is  the  Absolute  Moral  Will.  That 
God  is  such  a  being  follows  from  the  contention  of  Royce  that  the  world, 
which  is  in  essence  identical  with  God,  is  moral.  Royce's  argument  for 
the  moral  nature  of  the  world  is  based  upon  his  conception  of  the  tem- 
poral and  eternal  orders  and  of  the  human  self  .^^  Royce  holds  that  in 
the  temporal  order  of  the  world  there  is  provided  ample  room  for  rnoral 
deeds  and  tasks  to  be  performed;  and  since  the  finite  individuals,  in 
their  unique  manner,  express  the  will  of  God,  they  have  individuality 
and  freedom.  Thus,  in  short,  the  world  is  moral,  and,  in  consequence 
of  this  fact,  God  is  the  Absolute  Moral  Will,  which  Will,  from  an  eternal 
point  of  view,  is  absolutely  fulfilled.^ 

(3) .     The  Relation  of  God  and  the  World, 
i.      The  Relation  of  God  and  Nature. 

Nature,  according  to  Royce,  is  the  World  of  Description,  while 
finite  minds  constitute  the  World  of  Appreciation.  The  reahty  of  the 
physical  world  is  boimd  up — since  it  has  no  independent  existence — 
with  that  of  social  beings — the  World  of  Appreciation.  The  world  of 
social  beings  is  real,  because  they  furnish  to  us  the  meaning  of  our 
vague  ideas;  they  give  us  the  constantly  needed  supplement  to  our  own 
fragmentary  meanings.^  Having  thus  estabhshed  the  reality  of  the 
social  world,  it  is  not  difficult  to  see  that  of  the  natural  world.  The 
physical  world  is  real  because  my  fellow  beings  experience  material 
objects  beyond  them  and  this  their  experience  supplements  my  own 
limited  experience.  The  phenomenal  world,  then,  exists  beyond  my 
private  experience — it  exists  in  the  experiences  of  my  fellow  beings) 
Thus  the  reality  of  the  external  world  is  dependent  on  that  of  the  social 
world.24 

2"  The  World  and  the  Individual,  II,  335. 

21  See  Ihid.,  Lectures  III  and  VI. 

^  For  Royce's  treatment  of  the  problem,  see  Ihid.,  esp.  Lecture  VUL 

a/6tV/.,pp.  170,172. 

"/WJ.,  pp.  175ff. 


26  BEARING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

'As  to  the  constitution  of  the  natural  world,  Royce  holds  that  it 
together  with  the  finite  minds  is  an  aspect  of  a  larger  life  of  the  world. 
The  processes  of  nature  and  human  minds  are  essentially  alike;  at 
bottom  they  are  identical — the  only  difference  between  them  is  that  the 
processes  of  nature  go  at  a  different  time-rate  than  ours.^  The  me- 
chanical laws  and  theories  of  science  do  not  tell  us  the  essence  of  nature; 
they  indicate  only  how  nature  behaves.  Royce  easily  accepts  the  doc- 
trine of  evolution,  because,  from  the  standpoint  of  his  theory  of  reality, 
it  can  be  made  to  show  that  the  processes  of  nature  and  mind  are  alike, 
and  it  can  thus  establish  the  fundamental  oneness  of  these  elements  of 
reality  with  the  larger  life  of  the  Absolute.^^  While  nature,  at  bottom, 
is  thus  mental  in  its  processes  and  alive  with  the  life  of  God,  yet  it  does 
not  form  a  complete  manifestation  of  him.  It  only  gives  us  a  glimpse 
into  the  larger  life  of  the  Absolute  Being;  it  furnishes  to  us  only  a  hint 
of  a  vaster  realm  of  life  of  which  we  form  a  part.^^  Nature,  for  Royce, 
then,  is  an  order  of  genuine  conscious  life,  manifesting,  in  a  limited  way, 
God  the  Absolute,  who  is  not  its  external  cause  but  its  very  existence.7 

ii.    The  Relation  of  God  and  Man. 

In  accordance  with  his  theory  of  Being  Royce  affirms  the  essential 
unity  of  man  with  God  the  Absolute,  and  makes  the  former  an  aspect  of 
the  latter.  Man  appears  to  us  an  incident  and  product  of  nature, 
heredity,  education,  and  social  environment.  But  how  do  you  know 
that  you  are  a  such  being?  It  is  because  you  are  ontologically  linked 
with  the  life  of  God.  By  virtue  of  this  organic  unity  of  man  with  God, 
man  shares,  in  essence,  all  the  attributes  of  the  infinite  in  finite  forms./ 
His  problem  is  to  attain  to  a  conscious  knowledge  of  this  fact.  But  this 
affirmation  of  the  ontological  unity  of  man  and  God  the  Absolute  raises 
a  great  problem,  which  Royce  is  called  upon  to  solve,  viz.:  whether 
or  not  man  really  possesses  freedom  and  individuality,  and  so  is  capable 
of  a  real  moral  life.  Royce  contends  that  man  has  freedom  and  individu- 
ality, and  therefore  is  a  real  ethical  being.  The  essence  of  freedom,  in 
Royce's  view,  consists  in  the  selective  activity  of  conscious  life.  That  is, 
I  have  several  objects  which  may  express  my  internal  meanings,  but  I 
uniquely  select  from  them  an  object  and  allow  it  alone  to  be  the  objec- 
tive fulfilment  of  my  internal  meanmg.^^    In  all  his  discussion  of  the 

^  Ibid.,  pp.  219  &. 

^  Ibid.,  pp.  219  S.,  2^2. 

27  Ibid.,  pp.  8  ff.,  204;  cf.  J.  Caird,  The  Fundamental  Ideas  of  Christianity,  I,  75. 

28  Royce,  op.  cit.,  II,  pp.  242,  330. 

^^Op.  cit.,  I,  pp.  449  &.;  cf.  II,  Lectures  VI,  VII,  where  the  same  view  is  worked 
out  in  detail. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  27 

relation  of  God  to  man,  Royce  holds  that  man  has  his  freedom  and 
individuality  by  virtue  of  his  organic  relation  to  God-  but  he  maintains 
that  in  God  man  still  dwells  as  an  unique  individual;  for  he  is  an  unique 
expression  of  God's  purpose.^*)  WTiile  in  Royce's  vrorld  there  is  only  one 
final  and  complete  seK — the  Absolute  Self — ,  yet  within  this  Self  there 
is  articulation,  contrast,  variety.  Hence  there  is  a  place  for  the  individual 
finite  self.  But  this  finite  self  is  not  as  yet  an  accompUshed  fact,  but  an 
ideal  to  be  achieved  in  the  future.^^  There  are  difficulties  in  the  way  of 
realizing  this  ideal  seK  in  v-iew  of  the  fact  that  the  present  finite  self  is 
closely  bound  up  with  nature  and  social  environment.  But  these 
difficulties  are  dissolved  when  we  see  that  this  world,  in  its  wholeness,  is 
the  expression  of  the  determinate  and  absolute  purpose,  the  fulfilment 
of  the  divine  will.^-  God  accompUshes  his  absolute  plan  in  the  world  as  a 
whole.  (Any  finite  self  is  free  not  in  isolation  from  the  whole  in  which 
God  expresses  his  plan,  but  in  relation  to  it  and  in  expressing  in  its 
imique  manner  the  will  of  God.  So  with  all  one's  dependence  one  is 
free  by  expressing  in  his  own  way  the  will  of  God.^  Thus  Royce 
attempts  to  secure  the  place  of  the  individual  in  his  system  of  the 
Absolute. 

2.     Criticism  of  Royce's  Solution  of  the  Problems. 

An  outline  statement  of  Royce's  general  position  and  conception  of 
God  has  now  been  set  forth.  This  has  prepared  us  for  the  task  before  us, 
namely,  to  make  a  critical  examination  of  the  position  of  Royce  respecting 
the  problems  which  we  have  indicated  as  due  to  the  effort  to  bring  the 
evolutionary  theory  into  relation  with  the  traditional  conception  of  God.^ 
In  accomplishing  this  critical  task  we  shall  be  able  to  see,  more  concretely, 
the  extent  to  which  Royce  has  worked  out  the  bearing  of  the  evolutionary 
theory  on  his  conception  of  God. 

In  general  it  can  be  said  that  Royce  has  worked  out  his  conception 
of  God  from  the  standpoint  of  his  absolute  ideaUsm.  Through  the 
medium  of  this  system  of  philosophy,  he  has  given  an  ideaUstic  interpre- 
tation of  the  world,  in  opposition  to  the  mechanistic  theory  of  natural- 
istic philosophy,  and  a  conception  of  God  in  terms  of  dynamic  immanence, 
in  contrast  to  the  traditional  conception  of  God  in  terms  of  reaUstic 
supernaturaUsm.    It  is,  then,  from  the  point  of  view  of  absolute  idealism, 


^^Op.  ciL,  II,  p.  286. 

^'Ibid.,pp.2S9i. 

^  Ibid.,  p.  292. 

^  Ibid.,  p.  293. 

**  See  above,  pp.  16  ff. 


28  BEARING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

that  Royce  has  ultimately  worked  out  the  bearing  of  the  evolutionary 
theory  on  the  conception  of  God.  (This  fact  must  be  borne  in  mind  in 
the  criticism  that  follows.) 

In  the  first  place,  as  regards  his  method  of  formulating  his  conception 
of  God,  we  note  that  Royce  has  not  made  use  of  the  inductive  empiricism 
employed  by  the  formulators  of  the  theories  of  evolution  which  we  have 
considered.  He  has  devoted  a  major  portion  of  the  first  series  of  his 
great  work,  The  World  and  the  Individual,  to  the  exposition  of  his  theory 
of  Being,  and  makes  the  theory  the  basis  of  all  his  subsequent  investiga- 
tions. Hence  he  frankly  claims  a  full  independence  of  his  philosophy 
from  scientific  results.^  Royce  analyzes  human  temporary,  and  frag- 
mentary experiences  and  absolutizes  them  into  an  all-inclusive,  absolute 
experience.^^  Or  he  makes  an  analysis  of  human  ideas  or  thoughts  and 
reaches  his  theory  of  an  absolute  Being  or  Thought,  and  considers  this 
theory  as  the  basis  of  his  system.^^  Thus  the  Absolute  Experience  or 
Being  is  made  the  ultimate  basis  of  our  finite  experience  and  thought. 
If  we  ask  how  our  fragmentary  experiences  could  "be  synthesized  into  the 
Absolute  Experience  or  Thought  of  Royce,  when  the  chasm  between  the 
content  of  our  finite  experience  and  that  of  an  all-inclusive  reality,  if 
there  were  such  a  being,  is  so  great;  Royce  makes  the  identification 
between  them  on  the  ground  of  logical  oneness  of  our  thought  with 
cosmic  thought.  It  is  from  the  standpoint  of  an  a  priori  Absolute 
Experience  or  Thought  that  we  find  the  criterion  of  all  the  evaluations 
which  Royce  makes  on  the  world  and  man.  He  has  no  ultimate  confi- 
dence in  the  facts  of  our  common  experience;  for  these  are  fragmentary 
and  fallible.  Instead  of  basing  our  view  of  the  world  on  the  revelations 
of  our  finite  experience,  we  must  build  our  philosophy  on  a  Being  which 
has  an  absolute  knowledge  and  experience,  on  an  all-embracing  reality, 
and  interprete  the  sheer  facts  of  our  experience  from  the  viewpoint  of 
such  a  Being.  Our  conception  of  God,  in  the  thought  of  Royce,  should 
not  be  derived  from  the  standpoint  of  our  experience,  but  should  be 
constructed  in  accordance  with  the  theory  of  an  absolute  Being,  yea  in 
terms  of  that  Being.  Accordingly  the  method  of  Royce  is  wholly  opposed 
to  that  of  the  scientific  evolutionary  theory. 

The  intellectuaUsm  and  apriorism  of  Royce's  method,  however,  is  in 
full  accord  with  his  general  system  of  thought.  Such  a  method  he  must 
follow  in  order  to  maintain  his  system  of  philosophy.    He  must  ever 

^  Op.  cit.,  II,  p.  8. 
^  Ibid.,  Lecture  lU. 
"  Op.  ciL,  I,  pp.  339  f. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  29 

insist  on  the  primacy  of  reason  as  the  source  of  religious  insight,  and  on 
that  to  which  this  reason  leads,  namely,  the  all-inclusive  and  aU-knowing 
insight,  as  the  criterion  of  the  truth  and  falsity  of  our  views  of  things.^^ 
But  it  should  not  be  overlooked  that  there  are  statements  in  Royce's 
works,  which  are  not  in  agreement  with  his  dialectic,  absolute  method. 
He  accepts,  for  example,  the  Kantian  dictum:  Nur  in  der  Erfahrung  ist 
Wahrheitf^  and  he  maintains  that  the  problem  of  reaUty  is  first  of  all  a 
problem  of  experience  and  practical  needs,  and  that  his  conception  of 
reality,  in  one  aspect  at  least,  is  thoroughly  empirical.^'^  In  the  work 
which  is  distinctly  devoted  to  the  problem  of  reHgious  knowledge,  Royce 
speaks  much  of  individual  and  social  experiences  as  sources  of  reUgious 
insight,"*^  and  appeals  to  the  actual  experiences  of  those  who  practise 
religion  as  guides  for  us  to  the  truth.^  Moreover,  in  his  recent  work, 
The  Problem  of  Christianity,  he  acknowledges  that  he  aims  to  deal  with  the 
subject  from  the  standpoint  of  life;'^  and  this  claim  is  fully  justified, 
particularly,  in  the  first  volume  of  the  work.  These  and  other  assertions 
of  Royce^  show  that  a  real  interest  of  Royce  is  to  ascertain  the  data  of 
our  common  individual  and  social  experiences,  and  to  build  his  view  of 
the  world  on  them.  Hence  just  in  so  far  as  Royce  deals  with  our  experi- 
ence in  its  varied  aspects,  he  is  not  in  line  with  his  absolute  method;  for 
it  cannot  be  consistently  maintained,  as  he  does,  that  the  method  of 
experience  would  point  us  to  an  all-inclusive  experience.^  On  the  other 
hand,  just  to  the  extent  that  Royce  makes  use  of  the  data  of  our  experi- 
ence, he  is  in  agreement  with  the  method  of  the  scientific  evolutionary 
theory.  So  to  this  degree,  he  has  worked  out  the  bearing  of  the  theory. 
In  view  of  the  fact  that  philosophically  Royce  does  not  use  the 
inductive  method  of  science,  it  is  not  difficult  to  see  what  his  attitude 
toward  science  is.  We  have  seen  that  he  claims  an  absolute  independence 
of  his  system  from  the  results  of  science.  This  he  effects  by  dividing 
the  universe  into  two  worlds:  the  world  of  fact  and  that  of  thought; 
the  world  of  description  and  that  of  appreciation;  the  temporal  and 
eternal  orders.    Science  deals  with  the  former,  while  his  philosophy  deals 

^*  The  Sources  of  Religious  Insight,  pp.  84  ff.,  109  ff. 
39  The  World  and  the  Individual  11,  p.  362. 
*oO/>.  cit.,  I,  pp.  55,401. 

*^  The  Sources  of  Religious  Insight,  pp.  26  ff.,  37  ff. 
*=  IhU.,  pp.  166  ff . 
«  Pp.  12  ff. 

"  See  op.  cit.,  I,  pp.  387  ff.;  II,  p.  5. 

*5  The  World  and  the  Individual,  II,  pp.  11  ff.;  cf.  The  Sources  of  Religious  Insight, 
pp.  109  f.,  137,  144  f. 


30  BEARING  or  TIIE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

with  the  latter;  so  they  are  independent  of  each  other.  This  indepen- 
dency, however,  can  be  maintained  only  as  each  of  them  is  willing  to 
restrict  itself  to  its  own  field  prescribed  by  Royce.  But  our  scientific 
and  philosophic  interests  are  so  related  in  our  experience  that  such  a 
rigid  separation  between  them  as  indicated  by  him  is  practically  impos- 
sible. As  a  matter  of  fact,  science  is  always  enlarging  its  borders;  there 
is  no  closed  region  for  its  investigation;^  so  that  we  cannot  say  to  science: 
Thus  far  thou  mayest  go  but  no  further.  Philosophy  or  theology  cannot 
shut  its  eyes  to  the  fields  ordinarily  covered  by  special  sciences,  for  the 
results  of  these  sciences  are  closely  related  to  the  interests  of  life,  with 
which  theology  and  philosophy  must  concern  themselves.'^^  Thus  the 
futihty  of  dividing  the  world  into  two  distinct  fields  and  of  assigning 
the  one  to  science  and  the  other  to  philosophy  is  clearly  evident.^^ 

But,  in  reality,  Royce  does  not  confine  himself  to  his  alio  ted  field. 
He  is  not  satisfied  with  the  interpretation  of  the  world  given  by  science, 
and  offers  his  idealistic  theory  of  it,  and  considers  it  as  the  final  view  of 
the  universe.^^  There  is  much  truth  in  his  statement:  "The  modem 
naturalistic  and  mechanical  views  of  reality  are  not,  indeed,  false  within 
their  own  proper  range,  but  they  are  inadequate  to  tell  us  the  whole 
truth.  "^^  But  to  maintain  that  the  theory  of  being,  which  Royce  holds, 
must  determine  all  his  interpretation  of  nature  and  man,^^  is  against  the 
empirical  temper  of  our  age.  The  present  age  desires  neither  scientific 
nor  philosophic  dogmatism.  Consequently,  both  science  and  philosophy 
must  assume  a  thoroughly  empirical  attitude  in  order  that  there  may  be 
a  proper  relation  between  them.  But  such  an  attitude  Royce  does  not 
entertain.  And  his  refusal  to  assume  the  empiricism,  which  character- 
izes the  evolutionary  theory,  is  characteristic  of  his  absolute  idealism. 
Yet  the  very  fact  that  Royce  affirms  even  the  temporal  reality  to  our 
experience  of  the  world,  and  assigns  this  temporal  order  to  the  work  of 
science,  shows  that  he  is  interested  in  viewing  the  facts  of  life  from  an 
empirical  point  of  view;  and  so  he  departs  from  his  absolute  philosophical 
theory.  But  just  to  the  degree  that  Royce  thus  takes  an  empirical 
attitude,  he  has  solved  the  problem  of  the  relation  of  his  theology  or 

*^  Pearson,  The  Grammar  of  Science,  pp.  12  ff.,  24. 
*''  Cf.  Baldwin,  Darwin  and  the  Humanities,  p.  81. 
^®  Cf.  I,  King,  The  Development  oj  Religion,  pp.  9  f. 

**  The  World  and  the  Individual,  II,  pp.  207  £F.;  William  James  and  Other  Essays, 
pp.  60  ff. 

60  William  James  and  Other  Essays,  p.  72. 
*^  The  World  and  the  Individual,  II,  pp.  8  f . 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  31 

philosophy  to  science;  and  so  to  that  extent  he  has  indicated  the  bear- 
ing of  the  evolutionary  theory  on  the  question  of  God. 

Now,  in  regard  to  Royce's  conception  of  God,  enough  has  already 
been  said^^  to  show  that  it  is  fundamentally  different  from  the  kind  of  a 
God  made  necessary,  if  we  accept  the  evolutionary  view  of  the  world. 
The  evolutionary  theory  would  hold  that  if  there  be  a  God,  he  must  not 
only  be  immanent  in  the  world  but  should  himself  be  actually  involved 
in  the  process  of  change  and  growth.  The  Gk)d  of  Royce  is,  however, 
wholly  unlike  such  an  evolving  God.  True,  his  God  is  immanent  in  the 
world  of  thought  and  is  not  such  a  colorless  being  as  held  by  the  mystic. 
True,  his  God  is  engaged  in  the  processes  of  thought — ^he  is  interpreting 
the  world.  But  he  is  eternally  what  he  is — there  is  no  change  and 
increase  in  his  being.  He  is  not  such  a  static  absolute  as  that  of  Spinoza, 
but  he  is  nevertheless  forever  complete  and  self-contained.  This  con- 
ception of  God  as  the  Absolute,  All-inclusive  Being,  free  from  the  vicissi- 
tudes of  time  and  evolution  is  perfectly  consistent  with  Royce's  system  of 
philosophy — absolute  idealism.  From  the  standpoint  of  this  philosophy 
we  can  have  no  other  God  than  the  eternally  perfect  God  of  Royce. 

But  what  is  worthy  of  note  in  this  connection  is  that  this  conception 
of  the  eternal  absoluteness  of  the  Gk)d  of  Royce  needs  to  be  modified  in 
the  light  of  many  of  his  statements  which  indicate  finite  aspects  of  his 
God.  To  cite  a  few,  we  note  the  following:  "The  only  way  to  give  our 
view  of  Being  rationaUty,"  writes  Royce,  ^  is  to  see  that  we  long  for 
the  Absolute  only  in  so  far  as  in  us  the  Absolute  also  longs,  and  seeks, 
through  our  ver}'-  temporal  striving,  the  peace  that  is  no  where  in  Time, 
but  only,  and  yet  absolutely,  in  eternity.  Were  there  no  longing  in 
Time,  there  would  be  no  peace  in  eternity.  .  .  .  The  right  eternally 
triumphs,  yet  not  without  temporal  warfare.  .  .  .  This  warfare  occurs, 
indeed,  within  the  divine  life  itself.  ...  I  sorrow.  But  the  sorrow  is 
not  only  mine.  This  same  sorrow,  just  as  it  is  for  me,  is  God's  sorrow."^ ' 
"God  wins  perfection  through  expressing  himself  in  a  finite  life  and 
triumphing  over  and  through  its  very  finitude.  .  .  .  Our  sorrow  is  God's 
sorrow.  ...  In  me  the  temporal  being,  in  me  now,  God  is  in  need,  is 
hungry,  is  thirsty,  is  in  prison.  In  me,  then,  God  is  dissatisfied.  But 
he  is  God.  He  is  absolute.  Eternity  is  his.  He  must  be  satisfied.  In 
eternity,  in  the  view  of  the  whole  temporal  process,  he  is  satisfied."^ 
These  and  similar  expressions  of  Royce  indicate  clearly  that  his  God  is 

"See  above,  pp.  21  £f. 

*3  The  World  and  the  Individual,  II,  pp.  386,  398,  409. 

"  William  James  and  Other  Essays,  pp.  183,  296. 


32  BEARING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

striving  to  attain  the  goal  of  his  perfection.  But  in  the  last  analysis 
Royce  would  hold  that  this  impression  of  God's  finitude  is  due  to  our 
finite,  temporal  point  of  view.  From  the  point  of  view  of  the  Absolute, 
its  will  is  completely  expressed,  its  tasks  perfectly  done,  its  moral  life 
absolutely  finished.^^  If  God  is  thus  eternally  complete  in  himself,  why 
does  he  suffer,  struggle,  and  long  to  be  perfect  at  all?  Is  his  temporal 
suffering  only  apparent  and  his  eternal  perfection  an  actual  fact?  In 
other  words,  Royce,  to  be  consistent,  has  to  afl&rm  either  the  stated 
suffering  of  God  as  real  and  so  his  God  finite,  or  his  suffering  as  an 
illusion  and  hence  his  God  eternally  complete.  Royce,  it  .seems,  does 
not  wish  to  do  either.  He  feels  too  keenly  the  realism  of  life  to  pro- 
nounce God  as  all  complete  and  perfect,  and  so  untouched  by  our  finite 
experiences.  He  would  consider  his  God  as  closely  related  to  our  tem- 
poral life,  and,  therefore,  he  attributes  to  his  God  the  elements  of  finite 
experience.  Yet,  impelled  by  his  absolute  idealism,  Royce  maintains 
that  the  all-inclusive  perfect  being  is  at  the  heart  of  the  world.^  But 
we  must  remark  that  just  in  so  far  as  Royce  interprets  God  in  terms  of 
our  evolutionary  experience,  which  he  does,  he  departs  from  his  philo- 
sophical position,  and  comes  to  the  conception  of  God  necessitated  by 
the  evolutionary  theory.  These  aspects — those  that  are  in  agreement 
with  his  absolute  ideaHsm  and  those  that  are  in  accord  with  the  evolu- 
tionary theory — ^we  also  note  as  we  come,  finally,  to  remark  on  his  con- 
ception of  God's  relation  to  the  world  and  man. 

It  is  maintained  by  Royce  that  his  God  is  morally  perfect."  This 
moral  perfection  of  God  is  not  the  result  of  moral  struggle  on  his  part.^^ 
Royce,  moreover,  declares  that  his  God  is  not  merely  immanent  in  the 
world  but  is  identical  with  the  totaUty  of  the  universe  in  all  its  expressions, 
God  is  identical  with  "the  totaUty  of  what  is,  past,  present,  and  future, 
the  totality  of  what  is  physical  and  what  is  mental,  of  what  is  temporal 
and  of  what  is  enduring  ....  Like  the  Logos  of  the  Fourth  Gospel, 
this  entire  world  is  not  only  with  God,  but  is  God."^^  This  being  the 
case,  the  world  of  nature  and  of  man  must  be  absolutely  good,  as  Royce 
asserts.^^    But  the  empirical  theories  of  evolution,  we  have  examined, 

*^See,  The  Religious  Aspect  of  Philosophy,  pp.  442  ff.;  The  Conception  of  God, 
pp.  8  ff.;  The  World  and  the  Individual,  II,  p.  302. 

^^  See  The  Religious  Aspect  of  Philosophy,  pp.  436  ff. 

^^  The  Religious  Aspect  of  Philosophy,  pp.  441  ff.;  The  Conception  of  God,  p.  8. 

^^  The  Religious  Aspect  of  Philosophy,  p.  448. 

®^  William  James  and  Other  Essays,  pp.  168  f.;  cf.  Ibid.,  pp.  285  f. 

""  The  Religious  Aspect  of  Philosophy,  p.  444. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  33 

indicate  to  us  that  there  are  connected  with  the  evolutionary  process  of 
the  world  merciless  struggles,  miseries,  wastes,  anomalies,  sufferings. 
These  forms  of  evil  we  cannot  deny  to  exist,  nor  can  they  be  explained 
away.  Royce  maintains  that  the  world  is  good  when  it  is  viewed  in  its 
entirety .^^  An  empirical  evolutionist  would  scarcely  consider  the  pro- 
cesses of  nature  so  ideaUstically  as  does  Royce.^^  The  actual  process  of 
nature  suggests  either  that  the  God  immanent  in  it  is  impotent  to  carry 
out  his  plans  without  evil  consequences,  or  that  there  are  evil  forces 
which  are  counteracting  his  activities.  But  Royce  admits  neither  hypo- 
thesis. He  must  contend  for  the  view  that  the  world  from  an  eternal 
point  of  view  is  perfect.  Yet  he  does  not  deny  all  reality  of  evils  in  the 
world;  he  admits  their  temporal  reality,  and  seeks  to  give  significance  to 
their  presence.^^  Here  again  we  see  his  deviation  from  his  absolute 
ideaHsm  and  a  tendency  on  his  part  toward  the  point  of  view  of  the 
evolutionary  theory. 

To  speak  now  of  Royce's  view  of  God's  relation  to  man,  we  need 
to  note  that  since  his  God,  being  the  aU-inclusive  individual  of  the  world, 
embraces  all  finite  beings;  and  since  the  latter  have  no  existence  apart 
from  the  former,  a  logical  consequence  would  be  that  finite  beings  possess 
no  real  freedom  and  individuality.  Finite  beings  are  aspects  of  the 
Absolute.  They  possess  no  existence  of  their  own;  their  ultimate  goal  is 
to  be  ontologically  one  with  the  Absolute.  This  view  of  finite  beings 
logically  follows  from  Royce's  absolute  idealism.  But  h^  distinctly 
attempts  to  show  that  finite  beings  possess  individuality  and  freedom." 
In  view  of  the  fact,  he  holds,  that  each  finite  being  expresses  in  his  unique 
manner  the  will  of  the  Absolute,  he  possesses  real  freedom  and  individu- 
ality. Because  finite  beings  thus  possess  freedom  and  individuality 
there  are  provided  all  the  possibilities  for  moral  life.^  And  in  the 
temporal  order  of  the  world  there  are  real  moral  deeds  done  and  real 
achievements  toward  a  better  world.  Hence  you  as  a  finite  being  must 
strive  with  all  your  might  to  accompUsh  the  will  of  God  in  your  life  and 
society.  Especially  in  his  recent  works  Royce  is  urgently  advocating 
the  necessity  of  this  moral  activity — we  must  five  the  life  of  loyalty  to 
an  eternal  cause.     (See  The  Philosophy  of  Loyalty]  William  James  and 

"  The  World  and  the  IndivUual,  II,  p.  379. 
«2  7^Vf.,  pp.  219ff. 

"  The  Warld  and  the  Individual,  I,  pp.  380ff.;  IT,  pp.  388  ff.;  The  Sources  of  Religious 
Insight,  pp.  215  flF. 

"  The  Warld  and  the  Individual,  II,  Lecture  VII. 
^  Ibid.,  pp.  343  ft. 


34  BEARING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

Other  Essays]  The  Sources  of  Religious  Insight)  The  Problem  of  Christi- 
anity), 

But  this  insistence  of  Royce  upon  moral  activity  leads  us  to  ask: 
Why  should  we  be  loyal  and  struggle  against  the  apparent  forces  of  evil 
to  create  a  better  world,  when  the  world  in  its  essence  is  aU  complete 
and  finished?  Why  must  we  struggle  through  the  evils  of  life  to  obtain 
perfection,  as  is  held  by  Royce,^  when  there  are  no  real  evils  in  the  world, 
and  we  stand  before  our  God  all  complete?^^  Thus  unless  there  are 
possibilities  for  change  and  growth  in  the  world,  we  cannot  see  how  there 
could  be  real  moral  life  for  us  finite  beings.  If  the  world  is  finished  from 
an  eternal  point  of  view,  as  Royce  holds,  so  that  we  cannot  change  its 
course;  the  only  course  open  to  us  is  to  deny  the  reality  of  movement 
and  progress  in  the  world  of  our  experience,  and  engage  ourselves  in  a 
mystic  contemplation  of  an  "eternal"  world.  Moreover,  God  is  not 
found  in  the  world  where  an  actual  evolution  is  taking  place;  therefore 
we  can  find  God  only  in  escaping  from  the  world  of  evolution.  What 
other  course  than  this  can  we  take  when  we  are  told  that  the  real  world 
is  perfect,  but  that  this  perfection  is  not  found  in  time,  and  that  our 
comfort  lies  in  the  knowledge  of  the  Eternal?^^  But  such  a  contempla- 
tive life  is  wholly  against  the  spirit  of  our  time.  And  Royce  would  not 
tolerate  such  a  life.  His  interests  he  in  the  actual  experiences  of  social 
realm  and  he  urges  that  we  shall  realize  a  universal  community.^ ^  A 
consistent  absolute  idealism  would  give  up  interest  in  our  evolutionary 
experience  and  would  urge  a  life  of  speculation  on  the  eternal  perfection 
of  the  world.  Royce,  however,  declines  to  accept  this  path.  The  moral 
and  religious  appeals  of  our  world  are  so  great  that  he  must  accept  and 
deal  earnestly  with  them.  In  following  this  course,  as  he  does,  Royce 
deviates  from  the  position  of  his  absolute  idealism,  and  comes  to  the 
standpoint  of  the  evolutionary  theory  which  stands  for  the  reaUty  of  the 
time-process  in  which  God  and  men  are  engaged  for  the  creation  of  a 
better  world. 

This  brings  us  to  the  close  of  our  criticism  of  Royce's  solution  of  the 
problems  raised  by  the  evolutionary  theory.  We  have  observed  that 
fundamentally  Royce  has  not  carried  out  consistently  the  implications  of 
his  theory.  We  have  indicated  to  what  extent  he  has  departed  from 
his  idealistic  position  and  worked  out  the  bearing  of  the  evolutionary 

^  William  James  and  Other  Essays,  pp.  171  fif.,  287  S. 

*'  The  World  and  the  Individual,  II,  p.  150. 

^^  Ibid.,  pp.  379,  411. 

*^  The  Problem  of  Christianity,  Lectures  II  ff. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  35 

theory  on  the  problem  of  method  and  on  the  conception  of  God.  While 
it  cannot  be  said  that  Royce  has  positively  solved  the  problems,  yet 
he  has  done  much  to  interpret  God  in  terms  of  the  evolutionary  theory. 

//.     The  Solution  of  the  Problems  in  Eiccken's  Philosophy  of  Life 

1.  General  Philosophical  Position  of  Eucken. 

The  primary  concern  of  Royce,  as  we  have  seen,  is  to  formulate  a 
philosophical  theory  of  the  world  which  shall  determine  all  the  interests  of 
life.  The  construction  of  a  Weltanschauung  is  not,  however,  Eucken's 
first  object.  His  fundamental  interest  lies  in  the  life-process  itself — m 
its  attempts,  struggles,  tasks.  Eucken  does  not  consider  this  life- 
process  in  its  isolated  aspects — the  intellect,  emotion,  will — ^but  he  views 
it  as  a  whole,  that  is,  in  its  inner  connections.  This  is  one  reason  why 
he  differs  from  other  vitalistic  systems.''^  That  is  to  say,  Eucken  deals 
with  life,  not  intellectually  nor  psychologically,  but  noologically — making 
an  examination  of  the  Ufe-process  in  its  wholeness.  In  this  noological 
examination  of  life,  he  observes  that  it  is  engaged  in  the  process  of 
struggle,  opposition,  conflict  with  the  physical  world,  with  merely  human 
culture,  and  even  within  the  higher  domain  of  life  itself.  To  get  rid  of 
these  enervating  chains,  life  must  not  have  recourse  to  philosophical 
speculation,  nor  to  aesthetic  or  pietistic  contemplation  of  the  world;  but 
it  must  struggle  with  all  its  migjit;  work  it  must,  if  life  is  to  triumph  over 
all  its  foes.^^  But  it  is  a  firm  conviction  of  Eucken  that  work,  which  is 
thus  an  indispensable  element  in  life,  cannot,  however,  assure  its  final 
victory;  if  life  were  to  gain — as  it  must — its  ultimate  triumph  over  all  its 
enemies,  it  must  be  grounded  in  an  independent  spiritual  life.'^^  It  is 
with  this  afi&rmation  of  an  independent  spiritual  life  that  Eucken's  con- 
ception of  God  is  connected.  Consequently,  we  shall  consider  his  con- 
ception of  God  from  the  standpoint  of  the  spiritual  life. 

2.  Eucken's  Conception  of  God. 

(1)  God  the  Independent  Spiritual  Life  as  the  Indispensable  Factor 
in  the  Life-process  of  Man 

God,  in  all  the  intellectuaHstic  systems  of  philosophy,  is  the  cosmic, 
explanatory  principle  of  the  universe,  the  ultimate  criterion  of  human 
thought.  It  is  otherwise  with  Eucken.  '•  God,  for  him,  is  that  ultimate 
Reahty  without  which  the  life-process  of  humanity,  in  its  struggles  with 

^o  Life's  Basis  and  Life's  Ideal,  pp.  3-80. 

'*  Here  emerges  his  activism,  Ibid.,  pp.  255-261. 

""■  On  these  points,  see  The  Problem  of  Human  Life,  Preface;  The  Truth  of  Religion, 
pp.  84  f.,  455  f.;  The  Life  of  the  Spirit,  pp.  vii,  401  ff.;  Main  Currents  of  Modern 
Thought,  pp.  113  f.;  Life's  Basis  and  Life's  Ideal,  p.  242,  etc. 


36  BEARING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

the  forces  of  evil,  cannot  win  or  be  assured  of  its  final  victory.  The 
necessary  existence  of  God,  according  to  Eucken,  lies  in  the  fact,  first, 
that  there  emerges  in  man  a  higher  life  in  contrast  to  that  of  nature; 
secondly,  that  so  soon  as  this  higher  life  becomes  evident  in  man,  there 
ensue  tremendous  conflicts  between  it  and  the  forces  of  the  physical 
world,  social  culture,  and  of  the  merely  human;  and,  thirdly,  that  our 
work  cannot  enable  us  ultimately  to  triumph  over  all  these  opposing 
forces.     We  must  briefly  consider  these  points. 

Eucken  fully  accepts  the  doctrine  of  evolution  which  views  man  as  a 
product  of  nature. '^^  But  he  contends  that  this  is  not  tantamount  to 
man's  complete  identity  with  the  life  of  nature.  The  very  fact  that  we 
have  knowledge  of  nature  and  its  processes  shows  that  we  transcend 
nature.  Thought  sets  up  an  inner  transcendent  unity  by  which  to  judge 
nature;  it  asks  the  whence  and  why  of  the  natural  phenomena.  Thought 
thus  creates  a  conflict,  a  dissatisfaction  of  man  with  nature.  But  thought 
cannot  free  man  from  the  powers  of  nature. '^^  This  impotency  leads  us 
to  ask  whether  fife  is  not  more  than  thought.  And  in  this  inquiry,  we 
find  in  Hfe  a  higher  interest  developing  itseK.  Life  based  on  nature 
aims  only  at  its  self-preservation.  But  as  life  advances  beyond  nature, 
there  develop  altruistic  motives  and  man  Uves  in  the  interest  of  the 
family,  the  state  and  the  like.  In  this  forgetfulness  of  mere  self,  there 
appears  a  new  form  of  life,  a  new  relation  between  men;  and  a  new  relation 
to  nature  is  also  developed — nature  becomes  a  means  of  man's  advance- 
ment. In  this  detachment  from  nature,  there  occurs  a  liberation  from 
external  ties  and  a  development  of  a  self-conscious  spirituality. "  It  is  this 
development  of  a  self-conscious  spirituality  in  man  that  essentially 
differentiates  him  from  the  life  of  nature. 

But  so  soon  as  this  higher  life  appears  in  the  domain  of  man,  he  is 
confronted  with  oppositions  from  all  sides.  So  long  as  man  remains  in 
the  self-preserving  stage  of  nature,  he  is  not  opposed  by  nature.  But  as 
man  attempts  to  raise  his  higher  life  above  the  degrading  pulls  of  nature, 
he  feels  keenest  its  opposition.  Death,  for  example,  coming  from  the 
order  of  nature,  cuts  short  the  life  of  the  individual,  and  so  frustrates  his 
hope  for  an  infinite  span  of  life,  his  longing  for  an  immortal  existence. 
The  natural  order  is  thus  unconcerned  with  the  aims  and  values  of 
human  life.'^^  So  we  must  seek  for  a  Divine  spiritual  Ufe  to  help  us  win 
the  spiritual  victory.  ^^ 

"  Life's  Basis  and  Life's  Ideal,  pp.  110  ff. 
7*/W<f.,  pp.  Il7f. 

75  See  The  Truth  of  Religion,  pp.  292  f. 
78/6JJ.,pp.  293ff. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  37 

Opposition  to  the  autonomous  development  of  man's  spiritual  life 
comes,  also,  from  the  region  of  culture.  Culture  at  first  seems  to  create 
a  world  of  reason  and  order;  yet  in  reality  it  hinders  the  onward  march 
of  the  spiritual  life.  The  spiritual  life  would  make  itself  independent  of 
all  the  external  shackles  of  life,  and  thus  be  made  the  end  in  itself;  but 
culture  aims  to  make  itself  an  independent  end,  and  so  to  subordinate  the 
spiritual  Ufe  to  its  own  service.  Social  culture  creates  customary  forms 
of  life  and  urges  individuals  to  conform  themselves  to  them.  In  this 
effort  of  social  culture,  it  levels  down  the  individual  differences  and  gives 
no  special  recognition  to  great  personaUties;  and  thus  it  crushes  individual 
greatness. 

Great  as  are  the  oppositions  of  nature  and  culture,  still  greater 
entanglements  are  found  within  man's  spiritual  life  itself.  The  opposi- 
tions from  without  are  small  in  comparison  with  the  difficulties  found 
within  the  spiritual  life."  The  effort  of  the  spiritual  Ufe  to  possess  the 
whole  of  Hfe  is  opposed  by  the  individual  movements:  scientific,  aesthetic, 
moral,  religious  interests  each  and  all  claim  exclusive  rights.  Further, 
there  is  a  cleft  between  the  subject  and  object — between  the  individual 
consciousness  and  external  world.  And,  finally,  there  is  an  antagonism 
between  the  noological  and  psychological  methods  of  dealing  with  lifej 

Thus  the  higher  life  of  man  is  confronted  by  the  oppositions  from 
without  and  entanglements  from  within.  The  situation  of  man,  there- 
fore, is  exceedingly  dark  and  hopeless.  Desperate  as  it  is  we  can  neither 
remain  in  the  region  of  nature  nor  give  up  the  task  to  acquire  an  inde- 
pendent spiritual  life.'^^  What  can,  then,  aid  us  to  triumph  over  the 
depressing  forces  of  evil  and  to  create  in  us  an  independent  spiritual 
life?  We  may  appeal  to  our  work,  for  it  is  not  a  mere  incident  in  man's 
life;  "but  it  is  that  through  which  he  first  develops  a  spiritual  life;  through 
which  he  acquires  a  spiritual  existence."^^  But  can  this  work  com- 
completely  enable  rnan  to  rise  above  the  conflicts  and  oppositions? 
Eucken  says.  No.  We  must,  in  our  desperate  situation,  he  would  say, 
appeal  to  a  world-transcendent  reality,  a  universal  life.  It  is  through 
our  participation  in  such  a  transcendent  spiritual  Hfe  that  we  ultimately 
triimiph  over  all  the  opposing  forces.  Even  when  there  is  a  complete 
failure  in  our  work,  a  depressive  frustration  in  our  struggle  against  the 
world,  through  the  world-transcendent  spiritual  life,  we  may  be  more 
than  conquerors.^*' 

"  Ibid.,  p.  307;  cf.  Life's  Basis  and  Life's  Ideal,  p.  172. 

"  The  Tridh  of  Religion,  pp.  291-363;  cf.  Life's  Basis  and  Life's  Ideal,  pp.  134  ff. 

"  Life's  Basis  and  Life's  Ideal,  pp.  202  £. 

«» Ibid.,  pp.  275  ff.;  cf.  The  TrtUh  of  Religion,  pp.  126  ff. 


3S>  BEARING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

Thus  Eucken  affirms  God  as  the  indispensable  presupposition  of  the 
life-process  of  man.  Our  next  concern  is  to  determine  the  character  of 
this  God. 

(2.)     God  as  the  Absolute  Spiritual  Life. 

God  has  already  been  characterized  by  Eucken  as  the  universal, 
world- transcendent  spiritual  life.  But  more  particularly  he  conceives  of 
God  as  the  Absolute  Spiritual  Life.^^  Eucken  thus  summarizes  the  con- 
tent of  his  conception  of  God:  "It  signifies  to  us  nothing  other  than  an 
Absolute  Spiritual  Life  in  its  grandeur  above  all  the  limitations  of  man 
and  the  world  of  experience — a  Spiritual  Life  that  has  attained  to  a 
complete  subsistence  in  itself,  and,  at  the  same  time,  to  an  encompassing 
of  all  reality.  .  .  .  The  idea  of  God  signifies  to  us  nothing  other  than 
an  Absolute  Spiritual  Life — a  life  in  possession  of  a  complete  existence 
for  itself,  and  constituting  the  substance  of  reality.  "^^  This  conception 
of  God  is  set  forth  by  Eucken  in  contrast  to  two  other  conceptions — 
the  anthropomorphic  and  the  ontological  speculative.  The  former 
attempts  to  keep  God  as  near  to  man  as  possible,  while  the  latter  aims 
to  lift  God  as  high  and  far  above  man  as  possible.  The  anthropo- 
morphic view  of  God  as  a  magnified  replica  of  human  being  has  been 
characteristic  of  the  conceptions  of  God  in  historical  religions.  Over 
against  this  tendency,  ontological  speculations  have  endeavored  to  hold 
God  as  a  being  without  any  qualities  and  above  all  concepts.  This 
speculative  conception  of  God  as  devoid  of  all  anthropomorphic  feature 
has  led  man  to  passive  contemplation.  The  anthropomorphic  tendency 
is  right  in  its  insistence  that,  in  order  for  religion  to  be  power  in  man,  God 
must  be  held  as  near  him;  while  the  ontological  speculative  view  of  God 
is  right  in  that  it  Hfts  religion  above  the  presentations  of  the  merely 
human.  Eucken  holds  that  his  conception  of  God  as  an  Absolute 
Spiritual  Life  reconciles  these  antithetical  tendencies,  for  this  conception, 
he  contends,  is  derived  from  the  life-process  itself.  In  the  life-process  of 
man  there  develops  an  independent  spiritual  life  which  lifts  hun  not 
simply  above  the  life  of  nature  but  also  above  that  of  the  merely  human; 
so  that  man  in  his  union  with  the  spiritual  life  becomes  one  with  the  nature 
of  God  the  Absolute  Spiritual  Life.  Thus  through  this  transcendentali- 
zation,  the  finite  and  the  infinite  do  no  longer  appear  in  sharp  opposites. 
Thus,  with  Eucken,  the  conception  of  God  as  the  Absolute  Spiritual 

81  This  conception  of  God  is  worked  out,  especially,  in  his  book,  The  Truth  of 
Religion. 

»Ubid.,  pp20SL,2H. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  39 

Life  is  the  ultimate  principle  which  solves  the  problems  involved  in  the 
relation  of  the  Divine  and  human.^ 

(3)     God's  Relation  to  Man  and  the  Worid. 
i.      God's  Relation  to  Man. 

We  have  already  seen  that  Eucken  considers  the  Absolute  Spiritual 
Life,  God,  to  be  the  indispensable  presupposition  of  the  spiritual  life  of 
man  in  its  struggle  against  the  forces  of  evil.  We  have  now  to  ascertain 
Eucken's  view  of  man's  ontological  relation  to  God.  This  is  a  difficult 
task;  because  Eucken  is  not  interested  in  logical  distinctions,  and  conse- 
quently does* not  make  definite  statements.  We  may  perhaps  state  his 
view  of  God's  relation  to  man  thus:  God  the  Absolute  Spiritual  Life  is 
free  from  all  struggle  and  conflict;  this  Absolute  Spiritual  Life  is  not  a 
natural  property  of  man;  and  yet  it  is  operating  in  him  from  the  com- 
mencement of  his  evolutionary  process.  In  the  course  of  the  evolu- 
tionary process  of  man,  there  develops  in  him,  in  consequence  of  the 
immanent  activity  of  the  Universal  Life,  a  higher  life  in  distinction  to 
that  of  nature.  This  higher  life  of  man  has  not  yet  become  one  with 
the  life  of  God,  for  it  is  still  subject  to  conflict  and  struggle;  so  that  man 
must  fight,  by  the  help  of  God,  against  the  forces  of  evil,  rise  above  them 
and  so  make  the  infinite  life  of  God,  his  essential  nature.^  Thus  Eucken 
conceives  of  God's  relation  to  man  in  terms  of  both  immanence  and 
transcendence.^ 

But  now  how  do  God  and  man  become  so  related?  It  is  here  that 
Eucken  differentiates  himself  from  orthodoxy  and  other  systems.  Ortho- 
doxy afiirms  that  God  comes  to  man  through  supernatural  and  external 
means;  Eucken,  on  the  contrary,  holds  that  God  reveals  himself  to  us 
inwardly  and  immediately.  Romanticism  and  pietism  hold  that  we 
realize  God's  presence  in  our  subjective  feeling  ;:1but  Eucken  maintains 
that  it  is  through  our  volitional  activity  that  we  become  aware  of  GodJ 
Speculative  philosophy  tells  us  that  we  obtain  our  union  with  God 
through  the  activity  of  our  thought;  Eucken,  on  the  other  hand,  asserts 
that  it  is  mainly  through  our  practical  struggles  against  the  forces  of 
evil  that  we  come  into  an  intimate  touch  with  God.^  It  is,  then,  through 
voHtional  activity  that  man  realizes  his  relation  to  Gk)d.^^  ) 

^  For  his  attitude  toward  the  personality  of  God,  see  The  Truth  of  Religiotiy 
pp.  208  ff.,  cf.  Ibid.,  pp.  430  ff. 

**  See  Main  Currents  of  Modern  Thought,  pp.  60  f.;  The  Truth  of  Religion,  pp.  119  fF., 
158, 163  i.;Life's  Basis  and  Life's  Ideal,  p.  154. 

85  Life's  Basis  and  Life's  Ideal,  pp.  143,  152,  154;  The  Truth  of  Religion,  pp.  221  flf. 

^  The  Truth  of  Religion,  pp.  250  f.,  251  ff.,  583  ff.;  Life's  Basis  and  Life's  Ideal, 
p.  172. 

*'  Life's  Basis  and  Life's  Ideal,  p.  247. 


40  BEARING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

As  to  the  effects  which  follow  from  this  relation  of  God  to  man, 
Eucken  holds  that  there  takes  place  a  [complete  transformation  of  man 
into  the  likeness  of  God,  and  the  life  of  God  becomes  man's  essential 
nature. ^^  Man's  higher  aspirations — after  infinity,  freedom  and  equaUty, 
eternity,  fellowship,  a  soul-life,  and  inward  greatness — ^are  made  real, 
when  he  is  at  one  with  the  Absolute  Spiritual  Life.^^  Through  the 
Universal  Life,  we  become  freed  from  the  conflicts  of  Ufe.^°  The  uni- 
versality, sovereignty,  autonomy  of  the  Spiritual  Life  becomes  the 
possession  of  man  who  struggles  to  embrace  the  whole  of  reality. ^^ 
Thus  Eucken  holds  up  an  inspiring  future  for  the  man  who  fights  to 
achieve  in  himself  an  independent  spiritual  life.  But  such  a  life  is 
always  a  task  to  be  accomplished.^^ 

ii.     God  and  the  World. 

Eucken  seeks  to  reconcile,  through  his  conception  of  God  as  the 
Absolute  Spiritual  Life,  the  antithetical  tendencies  of  thought  between 
transcendence  and  immanence,  dualism  and  monism,  supernaturalism 
and  naturalism.  He  is  opposed  to  the  crass  duaHsm  of  ordinary  thought; 
he  would  view  the  Godhead  in  an  intimate  relation  with  the  nature  of 
things.  But  a  thoroughgoing  denial  of  dualism  leads  inevitably  to 
pantheism.  Eucken  appreciates  the  merits  of  pantheism;  it  holds  up 
before  us  the  unity,  grandeur,  beauty,  and  the  greatness  of  the  world. 
But  he  is  opposed  to  the  system  because  it  represents  the  world  in  all 
its  aspects  as  completely  harmonious.  Now,  our  life-process  discovers 
itself  involved  in  desperate  struggles  and  oppositions  against  the  world 
which  are  ignored  by  pantheism.^^  Pantheism,  moreover,  holds  that 
the  great  aims  of  life  are  already  attained;  it  thus  leads  to  mere  contem- 
plation of  reality,  and  to  a  quietistic  optimism.  It  is  the  view  of  Eucken 
that  it  is  characteristic  of  religion  to  affirm  that  the  Divine  world  repre- 
sents along  with  itself  another  world  which  is  brought  into  relation  with 
the  Divine  world  not  by  its  own  strength  but  by  that  of  the  Divine.^' 
So  religion,  with  its  affirmation  of  the  Absolute  Spiritual  Life  which  is 
effective  above  and  within  the  world,  must  constantly  oppose  both 
pantheism  and  duaUsm. 

88  Ihid.,  pp.  145  f . 

89  The  Truth  of  Religion,  pp.  261-282;  cf.  Ihid.,  pp.  437-453;  Life's  Basis  and  Life's 
Ideal,  pp.  16SS. 

90  The  Truth  of  Religion,  pp.  120,  126,  131,  188,  191. 
« Ibid.,  p.  170. 

92  Main  Currents  of  Modern  Thought,  p.  229. 

93  See  The  Truth  of  Religion,  p.  218. 
9* /6m?.,  pp.  220  f. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  41 

With  this  contention  of  reHgion  for  a  close  relation  of  God  to  the 
world,  Eucken  agrees.  He  considers  God  the  Absolute  Spiritual  Life 
to  be  the  very  foundation  of  the  world.  In  spite  of  the  fact  that  there 
are  evil  forces  operating  against  the  activity  of  God,  the  existence  and 
processes  of  the  world  must  be  due  to  the  immanent  activity  of  God. 
If  out  of  nature  man  arises  with  a  capacity  for  appropriating  the  Uni- 
versal Life,  there  must  have  been  present  in  the  evolutionary  process 
such  a  life  as  its  ultimate  cause.  With  the  recognition  of  the  Absolute 
Spiritual  Life  as  the  foundation  of  our  life,  "  our  whole  view  of  the  cosmos 
changes,  and  with  it  our  task  in  life.  Nature  no  longer  constitutes  the 
whole  of  reality,  and  the  latter  acquires  a  deeper  significance."^^  "Na- 
ture must  be  more  than  a  soulless  machine  if  its  evolution  is  to  lead, 
as  it  does,  to  the  point  where  a  self-conscious  life  emerges."^  ^Thus  in 
the  thought  of  Eucken,  God  is  the  ultimate  cause  of  the  world. 
3.  Criticism  of  Eucken's  Solution  of  the  Problems. 
We  have  observed,  in  our  exposition  of  Eucken's  conception  of  God, 
that  he  has  sought  to  bring  it  into  line  with  the  evolutionary  thought  of 
our  age.  This  is  particularly  manifest  in  his  emphasis  upon  the  life- 
process  and  its  acti\dty.  Here  we  find  an  equivalent  for  Darwin's 
central  idea,  the  struggle  for  existence.  But  we  have  now  to  enquire 
more  particularly  whether  Eucken  has  made  use  of  the  essential  ele- 
ments of  the  evolutionary  theory  in  his  formulation  of  his  conception  of 
God. 

The  central  thought  in  Eucken's  philosophy  of  life  is  his  conception 
of  a  world- transcendent  spiritual  Ufe,  a  whole  of  reality,  which  he  identi- 
fies with  God.  This  God,  the  cosmic  spiritual  life,  furnishes  the  solution 
to  all  the  problems  of  our  life.  He  is  the  fundamental  basis  of  human 
life  and  its  activities.  A  pertinent  question  is:  How  does  Eucken  come 
to  his  conception  of  such  a  God?  Eucken  repudiates  the  intellectualism 
of  idealistic  philosophy  (that  of  Hegel,  for  example),  the  subjectivism  of 
Romanticism,  and  such  voluntarism  as  that  of  Schopenhauer.^^  He  is 
especially  opposed  to  the  psychological  method,  which  would  base  our 
view  of  reaUty  on  what  it  discovers  in  the  immediate  psychical  life  of  man. 
That  we  cannot  base  our  philosophy  of  life  on  what  we  find  in  the  imme- 
diate psychic  existence  is  evident  from  the  fact  that  it  is  characterized 
by  uncertainty  and  transitoriness.  Therefore  we  must  oppose  the 
psychological  method,  as  it  cannot  discover  a  durable  truth  which  we 

*  Main  Currents  of  Modern  Thought,  p.  459. 

^Life's  Basis  and  Life's  Ideal,  pp.  270  f.;  cf.  The  Truth  of  Religion,  pp.  165  flf. 

»'  The  Truth  of  Religion,  pp.  73  ff. 


42  '  BEARINC^  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

seek.  In  the  place  of  psychological  method,  Eucken  follows  what  he 
calls  the  noological  method.  "To  explain  noologically,"  writes  Eucken, 
"means  to  arrange  the  whole  of  the  Spiritual  Life  as  a  special  activity, 
to  ascertain  its  position  and  problem,  and  through  such  an  adaptation 
to  illumine  the  whole  and  raise  its  potencies.  "^^  By  thus  viewing  the 
various  aspects  of  life  noologically,  Eucken  comes  to  the  view  of  an 
independent  spiritual  life  as  the  basis  of  his  philosophy;  all  things  must 
be  viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  such  a  life.^^ 

It  is  evident,  even  from  this  brief  reference  to  his  method,  that 
Eucken  does  not  make  use  of  the  inductive  method  employed  by  the 
formulators  of  the  evolutionary  theories.  Eucken,  like  Royce,  explains 
reality  deductively,  that  is,  from  the  standpoint  of  an  independent 
spiritual  life  which  he  affirms  to  be  a  priori  necessary  (Royce's  intellectu- 
alism,  of  course,  is  absent  from  Eucken).  With  this  a  priori  assumption, 
Eucken  discounts  the  elements  of  reality  ascertainable  in  history  and  in 
our  experience.  And  this  a  priori  method  is  perfectly  in  accord  with  his 
general  philosophical  position.  Nevertheless,  in  spite  of  his  fundamental 
interests  in  an  absolutist  metaphysics,  Eucken,  like  Royce,  is  constantly 
concerned  with  the  actual  struggles  and  conflicts  of  experience;  he  is 
incessantly  engaged  in  setting  forth  the  life-process  in  its  progressive 
development.  It  is  not  something  beyond  our  experience  with  which 
Eucken  deals;  he  is  investigating  the  living  and  empirical  interests  of  the 
life-process  itself.  What  attracts  his  attention  and  leads  him  to  inquire 
is  thus  our  evolutionary  experience.  His  interest  in  the  evolutionary 
experiences  of  life  is  indicated  to  us  by  his  historical  works.^^°  Yet  it  is 
his  fear  that  we  cannot  discover  a  stable  basis  of  life  through  the  use  of 
empirical  method  that  leads  him  to  distrust  this  method  and  to  fall 
back  on  his  a  priori  procedure.^^^  Thus  we  see  in  Eucken,  as  we  have 
found  in  Royce,  a  double  tendency:  a  tendency  to  deal  with  the  facts 
of  life  empirically,  and  a  tendency  to  view  them  from  the  standpoint  of 
an  a  priori  assumption. 

This  double  tendency  appears  in  his  attitude  toward  science.  Eucken 
fully  appreciates  the  worth  of  science  as  it  enables  us  to  control  the 
forces  of  nature.^^^  This  appreciation  of  modern  science  is  made  m2im.' 

^^Ibid.,  p.  178;  cf.  pp.  453  ff.;  Life's  Basis  and  Life's  Ided,  pp.  158,  242  f.,  351  f. 
"  Main  Currents  of  Modern  Thought,  pp.  129  ff. 

^°°  E.  g.,  The  Problem  of  Human  Life,  Main  Currents  of  Modern  Thought. 
^"^  For  a  criticism  of  Eucken's  method,  see  Waterhouse,  Modern  Theories  of 
Religion,  pp.  257  ff. 

^°*  Life's  Basis  and  Life's  Ideal,  pp.  345  ff. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  43 

fest  in  his  repudiation  of  the  naive  supematuralism  of  traditional  Chris- 
tianity.^^ He  readily  accepts  the  fact  of  evolution.^^  He  holds  that 
it  is  not  natural  science  that  creates  trouble  for  us,  but  our  own  weakness 
in  spiritual  convictions.^^^  But  a  question  here  is:  Can  he  really  appre- 
ciate and  do  justice  to  scientific  concepts,  the  evolutionary  theory 
included,  without  accepting  the  method  by  which  these  concepts  are 
formulated?  Can  he  accept  the  theory  of  evolution  apart  from  its 
method?  The  method  and  theory  of  evolution  sesm  to  be  so  closely 
bound  up  with  each  other  that  one  will  find  it  very  difficult  to  accept 
the  one  and  reject  the  other  in  any  consistent  way.  Eucken  is  perfectly 
willing  to  view  man  as  a  product  of  nature,  provided  he  is  allowed  to 
maintain  that  in  man  there  appears  in  the  course  of  his  evolutionary 
process  an  independent  spiritual  life.^^  He  thus  lays  his  greatest 
emphasis  upon  the  super-empirical  factor  in  the  evolutionary  process  of 
man. 

It  is  this  emphasis  of  Eucken  on  an  independent  spiritual  life  above 
evolution  that  leads  him  to  oppose  the  naturalistic  philosophy  which 
results  from  the  phenomenal  success  of  modern  science.  He  cannot 
tolerate  the  theory  that  the  whole  life  of  man  is  identical  with  the  physi- 
cal and  chemical  elements  of  nature,  and  that  it  can  be  explained  by 
something  lower  than  man.^^^ 

But  what  we  wish  to  indicate  here  is  that  Eucken  has  done  much  to 
bring  science  and  philosophy  or  theology  into  cordial  relations.  He  is 
wilHng  that  science  should  deal  with  the  whole  physical  realm  of  reality. 
And  it  may  also  concern  itself  with  the  psychical  facts  of  existence. 
Eucken  does  not  introduce  breaks  into  the  evolutionary  process;  he 
accepts  man  completely  as  a  product  of  nature.  The  only  thing  in 
science,  which  he  strenuously  opposes,  is  its  naturaUstic  tendency  to 
explain  human  life  purely  in  terms  of  natural  elements.  Eucken  rightly 
holds  that  there  is  more  to  reality  than  it  is  discovered  by  natural  science. 
So  that  natural  science  must  surrender  its  dogmatic  tendency  if  there 
is  to  be  a  tenable  relation  between  it  and  theology.  But,  in  order  to 
estabhsh  a  completely  harmonious  relation  between  them,  Eucken  would 
have  to  give  up  his  a  priori  assumption  of  an  absolute  spiritual  reaUty 

'^Ihid.,  pp.  6  ff.;  The  Truth  of  Religion,  pp.  521  ff.,  549  f. 
^°*  Main  Currents  of  Modern  Thought,  pp.  257,  262  f.,  278. 
^*  The  Problem  of  Human  Life,  pp.  541  f . 
i«»  The  Life  of  the  Spirit,  p.  271. 

^'^''  Life's  Basis  and  Life's  Ideal,  pp.  24  ff.;  Main  Currents  of  Modern  Thought, 
pp.  184  f. 


44  BEARING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

standing  outside  the  evolutionary  process.  Eucken,  however,  in  accord- 
ance with  his  philosophical  position,  refuses  to  be  content  with  the  kind 
of  reality  indicated  by  the  evolutionary  theory.  But  the  very  fact  that 
he  views  so  much  of  reality,  as  we  have  seen,  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
evolutionary  theory,  shows  that  he  has  departed  from  a  strictly  abso- 
lutistic  position,  and  gives  positive  value  to  the  aspects  of  reality  ascer- 
tainable in  our  evolutionary  experience. 

Now  in  regard  to  the  traditional  conception  of  God  as  the  transcen- 
dent, supernatural  personality,  it  should  be  noted  that  Eucken  has  set 
aside  its  supernaturalistic  features,  and  retains  what  he  regards  as  its 
eternal  element.  He  cannot  conceive  of  God  as  coming  to  us  by  means  of 
external  revelation,  miracles,  mediations,  even  by  the  Son  of  God.^^^ 
He  would  not,  therefore,  hold  to  the  view  of  God  as  a  realistically  con- 
ceived transcendent  personality.  To  be  sure,  Eucken  holds  to  the 
transcendence  of  God,  but  not  in  the  sense  of  traditional  theology.  The 
God  of  Eucken  is  transcendent  only  in  the  sense  that  he  cannot  be 
identified  with  the  mere  totality  of  evolving  things,  and  so  is  above  time 
and  history  which  characterize  empirical  reality.  But  this  rejection  of 
the  traditional  conception  of  God  as  transcendent  personality  is  not, 
however,  for  Eucken,  equivalent  to  the  denial  of  its  eternal  kernel. 
This  eternal  element  in  the  traditional  doctrine  of  God  is  found  in  the 
affirmation  of  an  Absolute  Spiritual  Life  in  union  with  man.^*^^  This 
leads  us  to  the  problem  of  God  as  the  Absolute  Being. 

Enough  has  been  said  in  our  treatment  of  Eucken's  conception  of 
God  to  show  that  he  conceives  of  him  as  the  Absolute  Spiritual  Life 
above  the  limitations  of  time  and  history.^^*^  Eucken  maintains  that 
God  as  the  Absolute  Spiritual  Life  is  the  foundation  of  all  time-order. 
An  Eternal  Order  of  things  is  the  basic  principle  of  history.  Man  cannot 
find  satisfaction  in  history,  if  there  is  not  disclosed  in  it  to  him  "aw 
over-historical  nature.' '^^^  Time  becomes  to  us  a  phantom  if  eternity  is 
lacking  in  it.  We  get  to  the  Spiritual  Life  through  the  movements  of 
time,  but  it  is  above  time  and  history.  ^^^  We  seek  for  a  basis  of  life. 
But  we  canot  find  it  in  our  immediate  experience,  thought,  or  activity; 
for  in  the  whole  life  of  immediate  existence,  all  is  change.  We  must, 
therefore,  seek  for  it  beyond  our  psychic  state — in  a  whole  of  Hfe  which 

108  The  Truth  of  Religion,  pp.  576  ff. 

109  Ibid.,  pp.  544  ff. 
"0  See  above,  pp.  38f. 

1"  The  Truth  of  Religion,  p.  175. 
ii2/6w/.,p.  176. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  45 

is  not  subject  to  time.^^^  To  conceive  of  God  as  subject  to  the  changes 
of  history  means  to  surrender  the  absoluteness  of  all  truth.  "To  place 
variableness  in  God  means  nothing  less  than  to  surrender  the  absoluteness 
of  truth,  it  means  no  less  than  to  leave  the  field  to  a  blind  positiveness 
and  a  destructive  relativism. "^^*  ReHgion  lays  hold  of  "an  Absolute 
Life  which  in  its  very  nature  is  timeless. "^^^  To  reduce  all  reality  to 
becoming  means  to  empty  of  life  all  its  content.     "The  transformation 

of  all  reality  into  a  stream  of  Becoming destroys  all  truth 

and  empties  life  of  all  its  content.  ReaUty  itself  seems  nothing  more 
than  an  ephemeral  world  of  shadows.  "^^^  So  that  "All  Spiritual  Life  is 
here  a  struggle  against  the  flux  of  time — an  ascent  to  eternal  and  immor- 
tal truth. "^^^  Thus  Eucken  cannot  subject  God  to  the  changes  of  time, 
to  which  we  are  exposed.  In  order  to  give  a  firm  and  unchangeable 
basis  to  the  changes  of  our  experience,  God  must  be  conceived  of  as  the 
Absolute  Spiritual  Life  free  from  all  the  vicissitudes  of  time.^^^  This 
affirmation  of  God  as  above  time  and  history  is  the  indispensable  kernel 
of  Eucken's  philosophy."^ 

But,  now,  there  are  many  elements  in  the  philosophy  of  Eucken 
which  would  naturally  lead  him  to  conceive  of  God  in  terms  of  change 
and  growth.  For  example,  his  emphasis  on  activity  rather  than  on 
thought  as  an  essential  means  of  appropriating  reality  ;^°  his  recognition 
of  movement  and  history  as  characteristic  of  modern  age;^^^  his  view  of 
God  as  immanent  in  the  world  of  man  helping  him  to  be  one  with  himself^ 
— all  these  and  other  like  elements  call  for  the  view  of  God  as  a  changing, 
growing  being.  Eucken,  however,  affirms  that,  in  the  interest  of  human 
life  and  civilization,  we  must  conceive  of  God  in  terms  of  an  Absolute 
Spiritual  Life  above  the  changes  of  time.  This  affirmation  of  Gk)d's 
imchangeabihty  can  be  consistently  maintained  by  Eucken  only  if  he 
views  the  ultimate  meaning  of  the  world  of  experience  in  static  terms,  and 
conceives  of  God's  relation  to  the  world  and  man  in  somewhat  after  the 
fashion  of  traditional  supernaturaUsm.    But  he  is  too  keenly  conscious 

"^  Life's  Basis  and  Life's  Ideal,  p.  154. 

"*  The  Truth  of  Religion,  pp.  379  f. 

'^  Ibid.,  p.  477. 

"•  Christianity  and  the  New  Idealism,  p.  4L 

^^^  The  Truth  of  Religion,  p.  446. 

"8/&i(f.,  pp.  537ff. 

"9  Ihid.,  p.  455. 

^«  Life's  Basis  and  Life's  Ideal,  pp.  220  ff.,  255  ff. 

^21  The  Life  of  the  Spirit,  pp.  104  fiF. 

122  The  Truth  of  Religion,  pp.  221  ff. 


46  BEARING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

of  the  life  and  movement  of  the  world  of  nature  and  of  man  to  conceive 
of  them  in  static  terms.  Neither  the  physical  world  nor  the  human 
world  is,  for  Eucken,  a  finished  entity;  they  are,  on  the  contrary,  changing 
and  growing  realities.  The  essential  characteristic  of  our  empirical  life 
is  its  movement,  struggle,  conflict.  We  are  not  yet  personalities,  but 
growing  to  be  such.  Moreover,  his  activistic  faith  does  not  permit  him 
to  confess  his  allegiance  to  the  traditional  supernaturalism  of  Christianity. 
He  would  rather  conceive  of  God  as  involved  in  a  vital  relation  with  the 
movements  of  history.^^  If  Eucken  consistently  followed  out  this  con- 
ception which  attributes  movement  and  growth  to  nature  and  humanity 
and  views  God's  relation  to  them  in  dynamic  terms,  it  would  be  exceed- 
ingly difficult  to  maintain  the  static  absoluteness  of  God.  Can  the  God 
of  Eucken,  who  is  held  to  be  in  dynamic  relation  to  the  world  of  nature 
and  of  man  which  are  involved  in  the  process  of  change  and  growth 
remain  unaffected  by  their  change  and  growth?  It  does  not  appear 
possible  for  such  a  God  to  be  essentially  unrelated  to  these  processes 
which  are  seen  to  be  the  dominant  characteristics  of  the  world  and 
humanity.  Thus  if  Eucken  maintains  the  absoluteness  of  God  in  the 
midst  of  change  and  movement  and  progress,  he  must  do  it  in  opposition 
to  the  undeniable  facts  of  our  common  experience  and  the  inductive 
evidences  of  science.  But  we  have  shown  that  there  are  many  features 
in  the  philosophy  of  Eucken  which  are  irreconcilable  with  his  contention 
for  the  static  absoluteness  of  God.  But  these  elements  which  oppose 
the  central  thought  of  Eucken  indicate  that  he  has  not  been  able  to 
escape  the  bearing  of  the  evolutionary  theory  on  his  conception  of  God. 
This  aspect  of  his  philosophy  will  appear  as  we  come,  finally,  to  his  view 
of  God's  relation  to  the  world  and  man. 

Eucken  ultimately  conceives  of  God's  relation  to  the  world  in  terms  of 
immanent  ideaUsm.^^^  This  conception,  however,  is  not  in  accord  with 
his  opposition  to  immanent  idealism  and  his  indictment  of  the  processes 
of  the  natural  world.  One  of  the  considerations  which  leads  Eucken  to 
oppose  the  system  of  immanent  idealism  is  its  assumption  that  reality 
is  completely  rational.  He  feels  that  the  historical  and  scientific  studies 
of  the  nineteenth  century  have  made  the  world  appear  very  dark  and 
irrational.^25  'pj^jg  sense  of  the  irrationality  of  the  world  and  of  its 
oppositions  to  the  values  and  aims  of  human  life  is  so  strong  that  Eucken 

^23  See  Christianity  and  the  New  Idealism,  pp.  45  ff.;  Life's  Basis  and  Life's   Ideal, 
pp.  188  £f.;  Main  Currents  of  Modern  Thought,  pp.  318  flf. 
^  See  above,  pp.  40  f . 
126  Life's  Basis  and  Life's  Ideal,  p.  20;  cf.  The  Truth  of  Religion,  pp.  290  ff. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  47 

is  forced  to  acknowledge  that  the  evils  in  the  world  present  to  us  an 
insoluble  enigma  of  life.^^e  jf  Qq^j  jg  the  ultimate  cause  and  foundation 
of  the  world,  as  Eucken  claims,  why  should  there  be  evils,  and  why  could 
they  not  be  explained?  The  admission  of  Eucken  as  to  the  reality  of  the 
evils  in  the  world  and  its  irrationality  suggests  either  that  his  God  is 
impotent  to  control  the  evil  forces  of  the  world,  or  they  are  due  to  some 
non-divine  factors.  In  either  case  God  would  be  finite  in  power.  But 
Eucken,  influenced  by  the  rationalizing  tendency  of  immanent  idealism, 
maintains  that  the  world,  despite  its  insoluble  evils,  is  due  to  the  imma- 
nent activity  of  God.^^^  Yet  his  firm  conviction  and  constant  reiteration 
of  the  wickedness  of  the  world  manifested  in  its  oppositions  and  hin- 
drances to  the  interests  of  human  life  tend  toward  the  conception  of  a 
finite  God. 

To  come  now  to  Eucken's  view  of  the  relation  of  God  and  man,  we 
observe  that  he  considers  this  relation  from  the  standpoint  of  the  prac- 
tical interests  of  the  life  of  man.  God  as  the  Absolute  Spiritual  Life  is 
absolutely  necessary  to  give  content  and  subsistence  to  man's  life; 
without  such  a  God  man  would  be  bound  by  the  evil  forces  of  nature  and 
so  could  not  attain  to  his  destiny.  The  method,  by  which  we  come  in 
touch  with  this  all-necessary  God  for  our  life,  is  practical.  It  is  through 
struggles,  sufferings,  conflicts,  according  to  Eucken,  that  we  come  to  the 
sense  of  our  union  with  God;  we  must  fight  with  all  our  might  against 
the  evil  forces  of  the  world  if  we  are  to  possess  the  life  of  God  in  our 
soul,  for  in  the  hardest  fight  we  gain  the  clearest  vision  of  God.^^^  In 
accordance  with  this  emphasis  of  Eucken  on  the  indispensableness  of 
volitional  activity,  we  find  that  only  in  a  few  passages  a  vision  of  a  life 
above  the  struggles  of  our  temporal  experience  is  promised.^^®  Holding 
this  life  of  bliss  before  us  we  must  ever  struggle  to  make  it  our  own. 

A  question  arises  at  this  point:  What  is  God's  relation  to  us  in  our 
struggle?  Is  he  implicated  in  our  struggles  against  the  antagonistic 
forces  of  the  world?  If  he  is  not  involved  in  the  sufferings  caused  by 
these  depressing  experiences,  how  could  he  actually  help  us?  Eucken 
flatly  denies  that  God  participates  in  our  struggles  and  sufferings.  All 
that  we  need  to  know,  according  to  Eucken,  is  that  God  does  help  us 
out  of  the  apparent  defeats  of  our  life.^^*^    He  desires  to  preserve  the 

126  Life's  Basis  and  Life's  Ideal,  pp.  280  f. ;  The  Truth  of  Religion,  pp.  490  ff. 

^'  Life's  Basis  and  Life's  Ideal,  pp.  270  £f. 

i28/6^J.,pp.246f,255fif. 

"9  See  Ihid.,  pp.  277  f.;  The  Truth  of  Religion,  pp.  126  ff. 

""  The  Truth  of  Religion,  pp.  432  ff. 


48  BEARING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

freedom  of  God  from  the  changes  and  experiences  of  time.  But  what 
we  need  particularly  to  observe  is  that  Eucken  gives  very  little  space  to 
an  exposition  of  his  contention  that  God  is  above  the  changes  and  suf- 
ferings of  our  life.  On  the  other  hand,  abundant  space  is  given  to  his 
exposition  of  the  life-process  of  man  in  its  historical  development.  And 
the  very  terms  in  which  he  speaks  of  God  are  derived  from  the  actual 
experiences  of  human  life.  The  phrase  most  used  by  Eucken  to  repre- 
sent God,  namely,  spiritual  life,  stands  for  a  reality  of  which  we  are 
directly  conscious  and  conscious  in  terms  of  changing  experience.  The 
God  of  Eucken  is  thus  not  consistently  portrayed  as  so  far  above  the 
limitations  of  human  experience  as  he  claims. 

We  may  conclude  our  criticism  of  Eucken  with  the  remark  that  there 
are  many  elements  in  his  philosophy  which  contradict  his  avowed  abso- 
lutistic  position,  and  which,  on  account  of  this  very  opposition  to  the 
central  thesis  of  his  system,  namely,  an  independent  spiritual  life  as  the 
fundamental  basis  and  ideal  of  human  life,  show  how  largely  he  has  been 
led  by  the  evolutionary  experiences  of  our  life  to  deal  with  it  empirically 
and  to  interpret  God  in  terms  of  these  experiences.  He  thus  shows 
plainly  the  influence  of  the  evolutionary  theory  on  his  conception  of  God. 

///.     The  Solution  of  the  Problems  in  Bowne's  Personal  Idealism 

1.    Bowne's  General  Philosophical  Position, 

The  primary  concern  of  Bowne  is  to  work  out  a  system  of  philosophy 
and  of  religion  which  shall  undermine  unscientific  naturalism  and  do  away 
with  a  false  supernaturalism,  and  which  shall  yet  do  justice  to  both 
science  and  religion  (This  is  particularly  manifest  in  his  book.  The  Imma- 
nence of  God.),  He  employs  to  accomplish  this  task  a  twofold  method. 
In  dealing  with  the  problems  of  metaphysics,  Bowne  confesses  that  we 
have  no  other  means  of  inquiry  but  thought.  The  world  exists  in  and 
for  thought,  and  the  categories  of  human  thought  are  taken  to  be  iden- 
tical with  the  principles  of  cosmic  being.  ^^^  Hence  *'  We  have  no  means  of 
deahng  with  reahty  other  than  through  the  conceptions  we  form  of  it."^^^ 
With  regard  to  our  moral  and  religious  problems,  however,  Bowne  holds 
that  we  must  appeal  to  our  practical  experiences.^^^  Yet  it  should  be 
observed  that,  for  Bowne,  the  ultimate  nature  of  reality  is  finally  to  be 
determined  through  the  medium  of  thought;  at  any  rate,  thought  forms 
the  starting  point  in  his  treatment  of  philosophy  and  of  religion. 

"1  Theism,  pp.  138,  132. 

^^^  Metaphysics,   p.    3. 

^^Uhid.,  pp.  411  f.,  427,  429;  Theism,  pp.  153,  261-280,  320. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  49 

The  essential  nature  of  reality,  discovered  by  this  method  of  thought, 
is,  according  to  Bowne,  conscious  intelligence  or  personality.  For  him, 
"the  entire  world  is  a  thought  world;  that  is,  a  world^that  exists  only 
through  and  in  relation  to  intelligence.  The  mind  is  the  only  ontological 
reality.  "^^  This  conscious  inteUigence,  mind,  or  personality  is  the 
inexplicable  presupposition  of  all  reality  ;^^  it  constitutes  the  fundamental 
nature  of  the  universe.  But  this  conscious  personality,  which  is  the 
ultimate  nature  of  the  world,  is  not  Royce's  all-inclusive  being.  It  con- 
sists of  an  infinite  mind  and  finite  minds.  Here  emerges  Bowne's  personal 
idealism  in  the  theory  that  the  ultimate  reality  is  a  world  of  persons 
with  a  Supreme  Person  at  its  head.^^^  From  the  standpoint  of  this 
conception  of  reality,  Bowne  constructs  his  doctrine  of  God  and  meets 
the  problems  raised  by  the  evolutionary  theory.^^'' 

2.     Bowne's  Conception  of  God. 

We  shall  consider,  following  Bowne's  method,  first  his  metaphysical 
conception  and  then  his  reUgious  conception  of  God. 

(1)     God  as  the  World-Ground. 

Bowne's  metaphysical  conception  of  God  is  summed  up  in  the  view 
of  him  as  the  world-ground,  the  causal  and  explanatory  principle  of  the 
universe.  This  world-ground  is  characterized,  according  to  Bowne, 
by  unity,  intelligence,  and  personality. 

God  is  first  of  all  the  unitary  ground  of  all  things;  all  forms  of  exis- 
tence have  their  being  in  and  through  him.  The  world,  from  one  point 
of  view  is  many,  while  it  is,  from  another  point  of  view,  one.  It  is  not, 
however,  the  many  that  sustain  the  world,  but  the  one.  This  view  that 
the  one  is  the  causal  ground  of  the  world  is  worked  out  by  Bowne  through 
the  theory  of  interaction  (which  he  inherits  from  Lotze).  Bowne 
assumes  that  the  world  forms  a  system  of  interaction;  things  are  related 
with  each  other  through  the  medium  of  interaction.  The  interaction 
between  them  is  made  possible  "through  the  unity  of  an  all-embracing 
one,  which  either  coordinates  and  mediates  their  interaction,  or  of 
which  they  are  in  some  sense  phases  or  modifications.  "^^^  Thus  there 
are  two  sorts  of  interaction.  In  the  case  of  phenomenal  reality  which 
has  no  ontological  reality  of  its  own,  the  interaction  is  immediate; 
while  in  regard  to  finite  spirits  that  have  a  certain  measure  of  onto- 

^^*  Metaphysics,  p.  423;  cf.  Theory  of  Thought  and  Knowledge,  p.  50. 

^^  Theism,  pp.  168  f. 

"*  Personalism,  pp.  277  f. 

"^  For  other  essential  elements  of  his  philosophy,  see  Metaphysics^  esp.  Part  I. 

"8  Metaphysics,  p.  81;  cf.  Theism,  p.  59. 


50  BEARING  or  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

logical  reality  and  so  to  this  extent  are  distinct  from  the  all-embracing 
one,  the  interaction  is  a  mediated  and  coordinated  interaction.  The 
unitary  being  which  thus  sustains  the  world  of  many  in  the  relation  of 
interaction  is  absolute  and  infinite.  As  absolute  this  being  does  not 
exclude  all  relation;  but  it  freely  determines  its  own  relation  to  the  world. 
As  infinite  this  being  does  not  deny  the  existence  of  the  finite  world; 
but  it  is  the  only  sufficient  source  of  the  latter.^^^ 

This  absolute  and  infinite  unitary  ground  of  the  world  is  intelligent! 
To  show  that  God,  the  world-ground,  is  inteUigent,  Bowne  employs  two 
kinds  of  argument — the  inductive  and  speculative. 

The  chief  inductive  arguments  employed  are  those  from  order,  tele- 
ology, and  finite  intelligence.;  The  argument  from  order  means  that 
the  order  seen  in  nature  is  not  due  to  some  non-intelligent,  but  to  an 
intelligent,  principle. ^^"^  The  argument  from  teleology  holds  that  in 
inorganic  and  organic  realms  not  only  do  we  see  order,  but  an  order 
directed  toward  ends;  there  we  discover  an  intelligent  purpose.  In 
nature  there  is  a  reign  of  law  but  also  of  purpose  and  ends.  This  argu- 
ment must  be  used  with  caution.  For  it  does  not  teach  an  external 
making  of  things,  but  an  immanent  guiding;  nor  does  it  hold  that  what- 
ever can  be  explained  by  natural  laws  and  agents  is  exempt  from  mental 
causality. ^^^  ;  Positively  the  teleological  argument  teaches  that  the  pro- 
cesses in  nature  are  determined  by  ends;  that  there  we  perceive  an  intelli- 
gent activity  at  work  for  the  accomplishment  of  purpose  or  purposes. 
But  a  purpose  cannot  act  except  as  a  conception  in  the  consciousness  of 
some  agent.  Hence  this  activity  demands  a  preconceiving  intelligence 
as  its  implication  or  condition. ^'^^  The  last  inductive  argument,  that  is, 
that  from  finite  intelligence,  points  out  that  we  cannot  go  from  our  finite 
intelhgence,  of  which  we  are  conscious,  to  some  non-intelligence  for  its 
explanation;  but  we  must  refer  our  finite  intelligence  to  some  cosmic 
intelligence  for  its  explanation.^^  It  is  the  view  of  Bowne  that  these 
inductive  arguments  are  valid  as  far  as  they  go,  but  they  are  not  final. 
So  he  turns  to  his  speculative  arguments  to  show  the  intelligence  of  the 
world-ground. 

He  mentions  two  speculative  arguments — the  epistemological  and 
metaphysical.    The  epistemological  argument  shows  that  atheism  des- 

^^^  Metaphysics,  p.  93;  cf.  Theism,  pp.  60  f. 
""  Theism,  pp.  69  f. 
1"  Ibid.,  pp.  82  flf. 

^*=For  Bowne's  attitude  toward  the  counter  arguments  to  the  above  theistic 
design  argument,  see  Theism,  pp.  89  ff. 
"3/6/^.,  pp.  119  ff. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  51 

troys  the  trustworthiness  of  reason.  In  a  mechanical  system  of  mind 
there  are  no  mental  acts,  but  only  psychological  occurrences.  Further,  a 
necessitarian,  mechanical  system  cannot  make  any  distinction  between 
truth  and  error.  But  we  must  hold  that  our  faculties  are  made  for 
truth.  Hence  epistemologically  we  are  led  to  the  position  of  theism. 
We  must  afl&rm  an  intelligent  principle  in  order  to  give  validity  to  our 
knowledge.  The  argument  from  metaphyscis  indicates  that  a  self- 
contained  atheistic  world  of  common-sense  realism  does  not  actually 
exist.  The  only  extant  world  is  a  world  of  thought  relations.  The 
intelligent  world  is  a  world  of  meanings  and  thought  contents,  and 
these  are  impossible  except  with  reference  to  inteUigence.  Such  an 
intelligent  principle  is  the  only  adequate  explanation  of  the  finite  world.^'*^ 

We  have  now  reached  the  view  that  the  world-ground  or  God  is  the 
unitary  causaUty  of  all  things,  and  that  he  is  their  rational  or  inteUigent 
principle.  But  does  it  follow  from  this  that  the  world-ground  is  also 
personal?  Is  the  unitary  and  intelligent  being  of  the  world  unconscious 
or  conscious  personality?  Bowne  contends  that  to  conceive  of  the  world- 
ground  m  terms  of  intelligence — as  we  must — means  to  view  it  also  as 
personal.^^  The  alleged  antinomy  between  personaUty  and  absolute- 
ness is  avoided  by  holding  that  inteUigence  as  appUed  to  the  world- 
ground  is  not  an  adjustment  oi  the  inner  condition  to  the  outer;  it  simply 
means  the  power  to  know.  PersonaUty,  moreover,  does  not  mean  cor- 
poreality or  spatiaUty;  by  personality  is  meant  only  self-knowledge  and 
seU-control.^^  Despite  the  objections  made  against  this  affirmation  of 
personaUty,"^  Bowne  maintains  that  we  are  shut  up  to  the  notion  of 
divine  personaUty."^  Personality  for  us  finite  beings  is  an  ideal  to  be 
achieved,  but  it  belongs  unconditionally  to  the  infinite.  A  perfect  and 
complete  personaUty  is  found  in  God  only."^ 

It  has  already  been  indicated  that  this  unitary,  inteUigent,  and  per- 
sonal world-ground  or  God  is  the  ontological  cause  of  all  things.  But 
Bowne  repudiates  all  systems  which  deny  or  miUtate  against  the  abso- 
lute independence  of  God  from  the  world.  He  maintains  that  God  is 
the  independent  cause  of  aU  finite  existence.    Hence  he  rejects  aU  forms 

'^^  Ibid.,  pp.  134  ff. 
^«  Ibid.,  p.  160. 

^*«  Ibid.,  p.  162;  cf.  Metaphysics,  p.  116,  Personalism,  p.  226. 
"7  Theism,  pp.  164  ff. 
"8  Ibid.,  p.  169. 

^*^Ibid.,  pp.  150  ff.;  cf.  Rashdall,  Personality:  Human  and  Divdne,  in  the  volume 
Personal  Idealism,  edited  by  Henry  Sturt. 


52  BEARING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

of  pantheism  as  derogatory  to  the  absoluteness  of  Gk)d/^^  and  contends 
for  the  view  that  all  finite  forms  of  existence  have  their  being  in  and 
through  the  immanent  activity  of  God.  The  physical  or  phenomenal 
world  owes  its  existence  to  God  absolutely;  while  the  finite  spirits  have 
"thing-hood"  to  a  certain  degree,  and  so  that  they  are  not  related  to  God 
absolutely.  But  both  these  forms  of  reality  are  caused  to  be  by  God, 
that  is,  all  finite  existences  are  dependent  on  God  for  such  existence  as 
they  have.^^^  Bowne  is  especially  concerned  to  guard  the  ontological 
reality  of  the  finite  spirits.  They  cannot  be  said  to  possess  the  same 
quality  of  existence  as  that  of  the  infinite.  Nevertheless,  they  have  a 
substantial  reality,  for  they  can  act  and  be  acted  upon.  In  our  experience 
we  find  that  we  have  a  certain  measure  of  freedom  as  well  as  the  sense 
of  our  dependence  on  the  external  forces.  It  is  because  of  this  limited 
freedom  that  we  are  made  responsible  for  our  moral  deeds.  But  we  are 
ultimately  dependent  on  God  for  our  existence.^^^ 

So  far  we  have  considered  Bowne's  metaphysical  conception  of  God. 
We  now  turn  to  his  religious  conception  of  God. 

(2)     The  World-Ground  as  Ethical. 

Bowne's  religious  conception  of  God  is  expressed  in  the  doctrine  that 
the  world-ground  is  ethical.  Thus  he  identifies  the  absolute  and  infinite 
intelligent  personal  God,  the  world-ground,  which  he  has  found  to  be 
the  necessary  metaphysical  principle  of  the  world,  with  the  God  of 
religion  (in  this  also  Bowne  is  following  Lotze).  Bowne,  however, 
candidly  admits  that  the  God  of  metaphysics  is  as  such  unsatisfactory 
to  religion.  Religiously  the  metaphysical  conception  is  secondary.  The 
human  mind,  on  the  whole,  has  sought  for  a  religious  conception  of  God 
prior  to  a  metaphysical  conception.  As  a  matter  of  logic  the  metaphysical 
attributes^^^  of  God  are  barren  ethically  and  so  religiously;  they  furnish 
a  possibiHty  of  an  ethical  nature,  but  do  not  necessarily  imply  such  a 
nature.  But  from  the  religious  point  of  view  the  important  attributes 
are  those  which  affirm  the  ethical  character  of  God.  Religion  demands 
a  God  whom  man  can  love,  trust  and  worship.  To  satisfy  this  demand 
of  religion,  God  must  be  conceived  in  terms  of  highest  ethical  qualities. 
The  immediate  task,  then,  for  Bowne,  is  to  determine  whether  the  God 
of  his  metaphysics  can  be  declared  ethical,  so  that  he  may  be  considered 
the  proper  object  of  rehgious  faith. 

15"  Theism,  pp.  199  ff. 
i«i76ii.,p.  207. 
"2Seef6/(f.,  pp.  218ff. 
"3  See  Theism,  pp.  172  fiF. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  53 

If  we  accept  the  idea  of  a  perfect  being  as  the  ground  of  the  universe, 
the  question  of  the  moral  character  of  God  is  settled  at  once.  For  in 
that  case,  the  true,  the  beautiful,  and  the  good  would  immediately 
follow.  But  Bowne  proceeds  to  examine  the  empirical  arguments  to 
ascertain  whether  they  convince  us  of  the  ethical  character  of  the  God  of 
metaphysics.  The  empirical  arguments  attempt  to  show  the  moral 
character  of  God  by  a  consideration  of  the  moral  nature  of  man,  the 
structure  of  society,  and  of  history.  In  regard  to  the  moral  nature  of 
man  it  may  be  said  that  it  owes  its  existence  to  a  moral  God,  for  we 
cannot  think  of  it  as  coining  from  an  unmoral  God.  This  is  an  argimaent 
from  moral  effect  to  a  moral  cause.  "Hence  spontaneous  thought  has 
generally  regarded  the  moral  nature  in  man  as  pointing  to  a  moral 
character  in  God  as  its  sufficient  ground.  Speculation,  too,  knows  of  no 
better  account  to  give."  ^  One  of  the  imphcations  of  this  argument  is 
that  our  conscience  immediately  testifies  to  a  moral  character  of  God; 
sin  is  sin  against  the  moral  will  of  God.  This  consciousness  of  sin  as 
being  against  the  will  of  God  as  well  as  other  moral  considerations  have 
led  mankind  to  posit  a  supreme  justice  and  goodness  in  God.  Another 
empirical  argument  concerns  itself  with  the  structure  of  life  and  society 
and  of  the  course  of  history.  These  are  held  to  reveal  the  moral  nature  of 
God.  Life  is  so  constituted  that  it  makes  for  values  and  ends.  The 
structure  of  society,  too,  is  such  as  to  further  moral  ends  through  its 
moral  institutions.  The  course  of  history,  moreover,  shows  the  rise  and 
development  of  moral  ideals,  and  indicates  also  that  nations  have  been 
wrecked  by  their  own  oppression,  injustice,  and  immoraUty.  These  are 
the  chief  empirical  arguments  that  have  been  iised  to  show  the  goodness 
of  God. 

These  empirical  arguments,  however,  in  the  opinion  of  Bowne,  are 
not  productive  of  certainty  as  to  the  ethical  character  of  the  world- 
ground;  they  do  not  form  a  source  of  the  faith  in  a  moral  God;  neither 
do  they  convince  us  of  the  superiority  of  a  moral  universe.  They  are 
based  upon  picked  facts  and  so  ignore  other  facts  which  are  against  the 
moral  nature  of  the  world.  They  in  themselves,  therefore,  do  not  furnish 
a  conclusive  evidence  as  to  the  ethical  character  of  God.  The  outcome 
of  an  empirical  examination  of  the  facts  which  the  world  presents  to  us, 
then,  "would  probably  be  the  affirmation  of  a  being  either  morally 
indifferent,  or  morally  imperfect,  or  morally  good,  but  limited  by  some 
insuperable  necessity  which  forbids  anything  better  than  our  shabby 

^  Theism,  p.  252. 


54  BEARING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

universe. "^^  But  our  mind  cannot  be  content  with  such  a  being.  It 
would  rather  maintain  its  faith  in  a  perfect  being  as  the  basis  of  the 
moraUty  of  the  world,  and  set  aside  the  dark  features  of  it  until  we  shall 
gain  a  better  insight  which  may  enable  us  to  harmonize  them  with  the 
idea  of  God  as  the  perfect  being.  Bowne  holds  that  this  assumption  is 
made  on  cognitive  and  moral  grounds  to  save  life  from  logical  and  moral 
destruction;  it  is  an  act  of  instinctive  self-defense  on  the  part  of  the  mind 
to  save  life  from  its  mental  and  moral  collapse.  "  This  impUcit  teleology 
of  life,"  says  Bowne,  "leads  with  equal  necessity  to  the  affirmation  of  a 
Supreme  Reason  and  a  Supreme  Righteousness.  "^^^  So  Bowne  appeals 
to  the  deep  experiences  of  life  itself,  and  not  to  logical  proof,  to  reach  a 
final  verdict  as  to  the  moral  character  of  the  world-ground.^^^  Since 
our  understanding  is  only  an  instrument  for  interpreting  the  data  fur- 
nished by  experience,  it  is  dependent  on  experience  for  its  interpretation 
of  the  world,  particularly,  in  regard  to  its  ethical  character.  So  we  must 
have  vital  experience,  for  it  is  in  active,  Hving  experience  that  we  really 
come  to  discern  the  goodness  of  our  Creator.  When  logic  fails  to  give 
us  the  certainty  as  to  the  ethical  character  of  God,  the  experiences  of 
life  thus  come  to  our  aid.  "Experience  is  held  to  testify  not  only  to  a 
cosmic  reason  but  also  to  a  cosmic  righteousness."  ^^^  Thus  Bowne, 
especially  in  dealing  with  ethical  and  religious  interests,  lays  a  great 
emphasis  on  experience  as  the  final  arbiter  in  these  matters. 

With  this  appeal  to  vital  experiences  Bowne  seeks  to  solve  the  problem 
of  evil.  This  cannot  be  settled  by  ratiocination  but  by  active  moral 
living.  For  when  we  consult  this  life  of  humanity  we  find  that  it  reveals 
"faith  in  the  moral  goodness  of  God."^^^  This  faith  is  an  ineradicable 
part  of  the  human  nature.  It  enables  man  to  "wander  in  the  wilderness 
until  he  has  fitted  himself  to  enter  the  promised  land."^^°  So  through  his 
appeal  to  the  experiences  of  life  Bowne  finds  reason  to  beheve  that  the 
world-ground  or  God  is  ethical. 

[  The  essential  characteristics  of  God  as  an  ethical  being  are  held  to  be 
love  and  hoHness;  God  is  a  being  of  holy  love.  These  ethical  elements  of 
God  must  be  held  in  their  organic  unity.  For  love  without  holiness 
would  be  mere  sentimentahty,  that  is,  it  would  lack  the  necessary  moral 

^  Ibid.,  p.  25S. 

^  Ibid.,  p.  25S,  d.  p.  261. 

^'' Ibid.,  p.  2S9. 

^»  Ibid.,  p.  261. 

^Ubid.,  p.  2S5. 

i«°/6^.,p.  284. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  55 

content;  and  holiness  apart  from  love  would  be  a  lifeless  negation.  Thus 
we  would  view  God  as  a  morally  perfect  being,  and  hence  our  moral 
ideal.^^^  Such  a  morally  perfect  God  is  the  necessary  presupposition  of 
our  moral  life.  We  are  so  constituted  that,  in  order  to  Uve  a  substantial 
moral  life,  we  must  believe  in  a  God  who  is  at  the  same  time  the  supreme 
reason  and  supreme  righteousness  of  the  world,  who  is  constantly  working 
in  the  natural  order,  in  the  course  of  history,  and  in  the  world  of  man  for  a 
supreme  moral  goal,  the  creation  of  a  community  of  free  moral  persons.  ^^^ 

We  have  thus  far  set  forth  positively  Bowne's  conception  of  God. 
We  shall  now  turn  to  the  criticism  of  his  solution  of  the  problems  with 
which  this  study  is  concerned. 

3.     Criticism  of  Bowne's  Solution  of  the  Problems. 

Our  discussion  of  Bowne's  philosophical  position  and  his  conception 
of  God  has  shown  that  he  represents  a  type  of  religious  philosophy  which 
seeks  to  vindicate  the  vaUdity  of  the  essential  content  of  the  Christian 
doctrine  of  God  in  an  age  of  philosophical  skepticism  and  of  scientific 
progress.  Conscious  of  the  difficulties  raised,  particularly,  by  modem 
science,  Bowne  has  sought  to  bring  the  traditional  conception  of  God 
into  relation  with  the  scientific  concepts  of  our  time  through  the  medium 
of  his  personal  ideaUsm.  It  is  our  concern  here  to  make  a  critical  exami- 
nation of  his  solution  of  the  problems  occasioned  by  the  evolutionary 
theory. 

As  regards  Bowne's  method  of  formulating  his  conception  of  God 
it  is  not  easy  to  generalize.  For  in  his  mode  of  procedure  there  are  inter- 
mingled apriori-deductive  and  empirical-inductive  elements.^^  In  his 
treatment  of  the  metaphysical  conception  of  God,  he  is  following  an 
apriori-deductive  method  shut  through  with  intellectualism;  though  he 
claims  that  the  practical  experiences  of  life  also  lead  us  to  the  view  of  God 
as  a  Supreme  Reason  ;^^  while  in  his  discussion  of  the  religious  view  of 
God,  he  lays  a  particular  emphasis  on  experience  as  having  the  last  word 
on  the  subject.  It  is  with  his  emphasis  on  life  in  the  formulation  of  his 
conception  of  God  that  we  find  the  most  difficulty.  We  agree  with  the 
suggestion  of  Bowne  that  the  vital  experiences  and  interests  of  life  must 
ultimately  determine  one's  conception  of  God.  But  it  does  not  follow 
that  empirically  we  shall  be  able  to  identify  the  God  of  metaphysics  with 

"^  For  Bowne's  effort  to  show  how  such  a  perfect  moral  being  is  capable  of  real 
life,  see  Theism,  pp.  287  ff. 
»«2  76i^.,  Chap.  VII. 
i«  See,  e.  g.,  Theism,  Chaps.  VI  f. 
^"/W^.,  pp.  258,  261. 


56  BEARING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

the  God  of  religion,  as  does  Bowne,  and  consider  him  as  the  Ethical 
Absolute.^^^  Hence  we  are  justified  in  sajdng  that  Bowne,  even  in  his 
construction  of  his  religious  conception  of  God  where  he  lays  the  most 
emphasis  on  experience,  is  proceeding  on  the  basis  of  his  preconceived 
theory  of  the  universe  and  of  God.^^^  Such  a  procedure  is,  however, 
wholly  in  harmony  with  his  a  priori  metaphysical  assumption.  Yet  we 
need  to  observe  that  the  very  fact  that  Bowne  lays  so  much  emphasis  on 
vital  experience;  that  he  distrusts  the  power  of  logical  syllogizing  to 
furnish  our  final  conception  of  the  character  of  God;^^^  and  that  he 
frankly  admits  the  priority  of  reUgious  conception  of  God  to  that  of  the 
metaphysical,^^^  shows  that  he  has  departed  from  his  metaphysical 
apriorism,  and  approximates  the  inductive  method  of  the  evolutionary 
theory. 

To  come  next  to  Bowne's  attitude  toward  science,  we  note  that  he 
stands  for  a  division  of  labor  between  it  and  philosophy.  He  relegates 
science  to  the  region  of  phenomenal  reality.  There  science  has  a  free 
hand  in  its  work  of  describing  the  occurrences  of  natural  events  and  their 
causal  nexus;  but  it  has  no  word  to  say  concerning  the  ontological 
realm.^®^  With  this  division  of  labor,  science,  on  the  one  hand,  and 
philosophy  and  theology,  on  the  other,  are  independent  of  each  other; 
the  former  concerns  itself  with  the  phenomenal  world  in  its  inductive 
causation,  and  the  latter  deals  with  the  noumenal  reality  in  its  ontological 
causation.  Difficulty  arises  only  when  science  steps  out  of  its  field  and 
gives  a  mechanical-causation  explanation  to  the  facts  of  the  noUmenal 
world;  or  when  it  claims  that  what  it  discovers  is  all  there  is  to  reality. ^^° 
In  order,  then,  to  keep  the  peace,  science  must  always  be  content  with 
its  task  of  inductive  description,  and  must  admit  that  its  realm  is  con- 
tinually dependent  on  the  noumenal;  while  philosophy  and  theology 
should  accept  the  descriptions  of  science  as  inductively  valid  and  be 
allowed  to  insist  that  the  realm  of  science  is  only  one  aspect  of  reality. 
These  must  be  the  terms  of  reconcihation  between  science  and  philosophy. 
So  contends  Bowne.  He  accepts  the  doctrine  of  evolution  in  its  induc- 
tive sense;  but  he  absolutely  refuses  to  accept  it,  if  it  means  that  the 

165  Ihid.,  pp.  285  ff. 

i6«  This  is  very  manifest  in  his  indictment  of  atheism,  ihid.,  pp.  291  ff. 

i"/Ji</.,pp.  258ff. 

i«8/6ii.,  pp.  248ff. 

^^^  Metaphysics,  pp.  68  f.;  Theism,  pp.  241  f.,  323;  The  Immanence  of  God,  pp.  18  ff. 

"°  Metaphysics,  pp.  250  ff.;  The  Immanence  of  God,  pp.  6  ff. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  57 

processes  of  evolution  are  carried  on  by  means  of  merely  phenomenal 
causes.^'^ 

This  solution  is  one  that  can  scarcely  be  maintained.  It  depends 
upon  the  vaUdity  of  dividing  the  universe  into  phenomenal  and  nou- 
menal  reaUties,  and  upon  the  success  with  which  we  can  keep  science  in 
its  field.  ReaUty,  as  we  know  it,  is  so  organically  inter-related  in  all 
its  parts  that  it  is  difficult  to  maintain  the  distinction  made  by  Bowne. 
Moreover,  science  does  not  restrict  itself  entirely  to  the  physical  world, 
but  is  constantly  enlarging  its  field  of  investigation  and  aspires  to  deal 
with  our  spiritual  reaUties.  Philosophy  and  theology,  on  the  other  hand, 
cannot  be  unconcerned  with  the  results  of  science.  Hence  it  would 
seem  that  the  best  way  to  work  out  a  helpful  relation  between  them  is 
to  view  reality  as  one  and  as  open  to  both  for  investigation.^^ 

It  should  be  noted,  however,  that  the  division  of  labor  between 
science  and  philosophy,  which  Bowne  makes,  and  the  use  of  the  scientific 
concept  of  order  in  his  conception  of  God^^^  point  to  the  view  that,  in 
these  regards  at  least,  Bowne  is  not  strictly  consistent  with  his  idealistic 
position;  but  that  he  has  a  large  positive  place  for  modem  science.  To 
this  extent,  he  admits  certain  implications  of  the  evolutionary  theory  in 
his  conception  of  God. 

Respecting  the  traditional  conception  of  God's  personaUty  and  his 
relation  to  the  world,  it  should  be  said  that  Bowne  has  set  aside  its 
reaHstic-supernaturalistic  features  so  as  to  make  it  more  acceptable  to 
our  age  of  science  and  immanent  philosophy.  To  be  sure,  Bowne 
retains  the  concept  of  God's  personaUty  as  his  essential  character.  Yet 
the  God  of  Bowne  is  not  a  transcendent  personaUty  who  Uves  in  a  super- 
natural world  and  occasionaUy  makes  inroads  i^to  the  realm  of  the 
natural  by  means  of  miraculous  interventions.  '  His  God  is  actively 
immanent  in  the  natural  order,  in  the  course  of  history,  and  in  the  human 
realm,  working  in  these  realms  in  an  orderly  manner.^^'*  Further,  Bowne 
does  not  hold  to  the  traditional  doctrine  of  creation  as  a  temporal  occur- 
rence, nor  does  he  set  forth  the  other  traditional  doctrines  of  preserva- 
tion and  providence;  these  doctrines  are  comprised  in  Bowne's  thought 
of  the  continual  dependence  of  the  world  on  the  immanent  activity  of 
God.^^^    The  God  of  Bowne,  it  must  be  granted,  is  transcendent;  but 

"1  Metaphysics,  pp.  276  ff.;  Theism,  pp.  103  ff. 

172  Cf.  Shaler,  The  Interpretation  of  Nature,  1893,  11.48  f.;  Lyman,  Theology  and 
Human  Problems,  pp.  118  ff. 

"3  Theism,  p.  323;  Metaphysics,  pp.  7  ff.;  Theism,  pp.  241  ff. 
"*  Metaphysics,  pp.  285  ff.;  The  Immanence  of  God. 
"5  Metaphysics,  pp.  99  ff.;  Theism,  pp.  218  ff. 


58  BEARING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

he  is  transcendent  only  in  the  sense  that  he  is  not  identical  with  the 
totality  of  the  world,  and  that  he  is  its  ultimate  cause.  And  as  to  Bowne's 
conception  of  the  personality  of  God,  the  difference  between  it  and  that 
of  the  traditional  doctrine  is  fully  manifest.  While  the  traditional  con- 
ception of  God's  personality  is  that  of  a  magnified  repHca  of  human  per- 
sonality; Bowne,  on  the  contrary,  conceives  of  his  personality  in  cosmic 
terms — it  is  the  ultimate  principle  of  the  universe  (one  may  well  question 
the  use  of  the  term  personality  in  this  sense).  But  here  also  we  note 
that  his  practical  religious  interest  has  led  him  to  conceive  of  God  in 
concrete  terms.^^^  Thus  his  hospitable  attitude  toward  empiricism 
appears. 

We  may  now  come  to  his  solution  of  the  problem  of  God  as  the  abso- 
lute being.  It  has  been  sufficiently  indicated  that  Bowne  thinks  of  God 
in  terms  of  absoluteness  and  infinitude.  He  consistently  maintains 
God's  independence  of  the  world.  God  is  related  to  the  world,  but  this 
relation  is  freely  posited  by  him.^^^  Evils  are  undeniably  in  the  world, 
but  God  is  entirely  free  from  the  responsibility  for  their  existence.  The 
world,  as  we  actually  find  it,  cannot  be  said  to  show  the  absolute  goodness 
of  God;  yet  considered  as  an  instrument  for  the  working  out  of  a  divine 
plan,  it  is  perfect;  so  we  may  legitimately  keep  our  faith  in  a  righteous 
God  who  has  a  complete  control  of  all  things.^^^  In  short,  God  is  com- 
plete and  perfect,  and  his  relation  to  the  world  is  a  matter  of  his  favor. 
This  being  the  case  with  God,  the  central  elements  of  the  evolutionary 
theory,  change  and  growth  of  things,  do  not  apply  to  him.  While 
Bowne  repudiates  the  notion  of  rigidly  static  reality ,^^^  and  recognizes 
changes  in  the  world,  he  views  God  as  unchangeable  and  free  from  time. 
Not  that  that  unchangeability  means  "an  ontological  rigidity  of  fixed 
monotony  of  being."  Rather  with  God  unchangeability  "means  only 
the  constancy  and  continuity  of  the  divine  nature  which  exists  through 
all  the  divine  acts  as  their  law  and  source."  ^^^  God  is  the  conductor  of 
the  world-process,  yet  is  totally  free  from  time.  We  must  maintain  this 
unchangeabiHty  of  God,  because  to  surrender  it  means  to  wreck  ths 
trustworthiness  of  human  thought;  there  must  be  a  changeless  element 
in  the  world  in  order  to  have  a  valid  metaphysics.^^^ 

"'  The  Essence  of  Religion,  pp.  7  ff. 

^^^  Theism,  pp.  163. 

178 /&«/.,  pp.  273  ff. 

"9  Metaphysics,  Chaps.  I,  III. 

180  Theism,  p.  178. 

^^' Ibid.,  pp.  183  ff.,  212. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  59 

But  we  need  to  inquire  whether  Bowne  has  really  established  his 
contention  for  the  unchangeability  of  God.  To  begin  with,  his  view 
of  reality  as  active,  and  his  admission  that  being  is  process/^  imply 
some  sort  of  progressive  action  on  God's  part.  Further,  Bowne  opposes 
the  theory  that  the  world  of  nature  and  of  man  alike  have  their  existence 
independent  of  God;  nature  is  no  self -running  machine,  nor  is  man  a 
natural  product.  In  other  words,  according  to  Bowne,  God  and  the 
world  are  organically  related.  To  be  sure,  Bowne  maintains  that  this 
relation  is  not  imposed  on  God  from  without,  but  is  a  self-posited  rela- 
tion. Nevertheless  he  affirms  God's  immanent  relation  to  it.  If  God 
and  the  world  are  thus  related  with  each  other,  how  could  the  former 
remain  unaffected  by  the  movement,  change,  and  progress  which  mark 
the  latter?  In  order  that  God  may  be  held  immune  from  these  pro- 
cesses, he  must  be  conceived  of  as  existing  in  isolated  reality.  But  such  a 
reaUstic  view  of  God,  Bowne  does  not  entertain.  Moreover,  according 
to  Bowne,  the  finite  spirits  have  an  ontological  otherness  over  against 
the  being  of  God.  Though  they  owe  their  existence  to  the  eternally 
creative  activity  of  God,  yet  they  have  a  certain  measure  of  distinctness 
and  independence.  The  God  of  Bowne  is  not  such  an  all-inclusive 
being  as  that  of  Royce,  but  is  a  supreme  person  at  the  head  of  a  commun- 
ity of  finite  persons.  Now  if  Bowne's  God  is  not  thus  an  all-embracing 
and  all-inclusive  being,  and  if  the  finite  spirits  have  their  ontological 
otherness,  though  it  may  be  very  slight,  how  could  his  God  be  declared 
absolute  and  finite?  Is  he  not  in  some  way  Hmited  by  the  existence  of 
finite  spirits?  A  true  metaphysical  absoluteness  of  God,  which  Bowne 
wishes  to  maintain,  can  be  obtained,  it  seems,  only  by  conceiving  of 
him  as  totally  unlimited  by  the  existence  of  the  world  and  man.  We 
cannot  get  around  the  difl&culty  involved  in  God's  relation  to  the  world 
by  saying,  as  does  Bowne,  that  this  relation  is  defined  and  posited  by 
God  himself;  for  if  God  is  absolute,  why  need  he  posit  this  relation  to  the 
world  at  all?  Bowne,  again,  holds  that  God  has  assumed  his  relation 
to  the  world  as  its  omnipresent  ground  for  the  purpose  of  realizing  some 
worthy  end,  a  conmiunity  of  moral  persons.^^  Now,  the  realization  of 
this  goal,  according  to  Bowne,  is  not  effected  by  miraculous  intervention; 
it  is  to  be  achieved  through  the  process  of  historical  development.  If 
God  thus  possesses  a  goal  the  realization  of  which  involves  a  process  of 
development  in  which  he  is  engaged,  how  could  he  be  held  to  be  free 
from  development  in  his  own  experience?    Does  not  the  possession  of 

182  Metaphysics,  pp.  28,  30,  53  ff . 

183  Theism,  pp.  213,  231. 


60  BEARING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

such  an  end  as  objective  for  God  imply  that  he  is  not  yet  satisfied,  and 
so  is  not  complete?  And  if  he  has  this  goal  that  is  as  yet  unrealized, 
how  could  he  be  a  perfect  absolute?  It  seems  very  difficult  to  conceive 
of  a  God,  who  has  an  unrealized  end  in  any  way,  as  an  absolute  and 
infinite  being. 

Finally,  Bowne  admits  the  existence  of  evils  in  the  world  of  nature 
and  of  man.^^  He  is  too  fully  aware  of  the  evils  in  the  world  as  to  deny 
their  existence  or  to  maintain  that  they  can  be  justified.^^  But  Bowne 
frees  God  from  any  share  in  the  evils  of  the  world.  He  can  do  this 
because  he  holds  that  the  world  considered  as  a  means  of  achieving  an 
end  is  perfect,  while  it  is  actually  imperfect.  True,  certain  evils  in  the 
world  may  be  turned  toward  the  production  of  something  good.  But 
this  fact  does  not  render  the  actual  system  faultlessly  perfect.  Bowne 
makes  men  wholly  responsible  for  the  moral  evils  in  the  world,  and  so 
exempts  God  from  any  share  in  them.^^  True,  men  must  be  held 
accountable  for  their  evil  acts.  But  if  the  system  of  the  world  is  good 
because  it  is  controlled  by  a  perfect  God  for  the  accomplishment  of  an 
end,  why  does  it  furnish  any  occasion  for  the  evil  deeds  of  men?  ,J  If, 
however,  men  commit  moral  evils,  not  in  relation  to  their  environing 
world,  but  as  result  of  the  determination  of  their  will,  why  should  not 
their  will  always  be  turned  toward  the  accomplishment  of  good  deeds, 
when  God,  the  perfect  being,  is  its  ontological  ground?  Bowne  reduces 
the  evils  in  the  animal  world  to  the  matter  of  pain,  which  he  holds,  is  of 
small  consequence.^^^  But  if  God  the  all  perfect  and  omnipotent  being  is 
the  causal  ground  of  the  animal  world,  how  could  there  be  any  pain  at 
all?  It  would  seem  empirically  from  the  fact  of  evils  in  the  world,  which 
Bowne  does  not  deny,  that  God  is  either  impotent  to  control  the  world 
without  involving  it  in  imperfections,  or  is  incapable  of  putting  down  as 
yet  the  forces  of  evil  which  are  opposing  his  work.  Bowne,  however, 
does  not  consider  any  such  suggestion.  He  still  contends  for  a  morally 
perfect  God.  But,  even  granting  that  there  is  such  a  God,  the  existence 
of  evils  militates  against  his  moral  perfection.  For  how  could  a  God,  who 
is  organically  related  with  the  world,  be  morally  blessed,  when  there  are 
evils  in  it?  These  and  the  like  considerations  lead  us  to  say  that  Bowne's 
contention  for  the  absoluteness  of  his  God  is  not  supported  by  the  empiri- 
cal elements  in  his  own  system.    The  above  cited  elements  in  his  philoso- 

*^  Theism,  pp.  273  ff.;  cf.  The  Essence  of  Religion,  pp.  45  ff. 
185  Theism,  p.  284. 
188  IhU.,  pp.  273  ff . 
"7  Ihid.,  p.  285. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  61 

phy,  when  consistently  followed,  would  lead  us  to  a  view  of  God  as 
struggling  with  the  forces  of  evil,  in  cooperation  with  human  personalities, 
and  as  actively  engaged  with  them  in  the  creation  of  a  better  world. 
Hence  he  would  be  a  limited,  changing,  growing  being. 

The  essential  finitude  of  God  as  Bowne  conceives  him  appears  when 
we  view,  finally,  his  conception  of  God's  relation  to  man.  Respecting 
this  matter,  Bowne  is  opposed  to  such  a  theory  of  absolute  idealism  as 
that  of  Royce,  for  example,  according  to  which  God  is  the  all-inclusive 
being  of  the  world,  apart  from  whom  man  has  no  real  existence  whatever. 
Bowne,  on  the  contrary,  stands  for  the  view  that  finite  spirits,  while 
they  are  causally  dependent  on  Gk)d,  have  a  certain  degree  of  indepen- 
dent existence.  But  from  the  standpoint  of  his  metaphysics,  the  onto- 
^jgical  otherness  of  the  finite  spirit  is  not  easy  to  determine.  For  the 
finite  spirit,  as  he  says,  "has  only  a  limited  and  relative  existence  at 
best.  ...  In  the  fullest  sense  of  the  word  only  the  infinite  exists; 
all  else  is  relatively  phenomenal  and  non-existent.  "^^^  Such  is  the  con- 
clusion to  which,  he  holds,  we  are  speculatively  forced.  It  is  the  appeal 
to  the  experiences  of  life  that  really,  as  he  admits,  leads  him  to  maintain 
the  selfhood  of  the  finite  spirit.^^^  This  affirmation  of  the  ontological 
otherness  of  finite  spirits  on  the  basis  of  experience,  it  should  be  observed, 
is  incompatible  wdth  the  strict  absoluteness  of  God;  for  God  is  Hmited  by 
these  other  real  spirits.  When  we  consider  Bowne's  view  of  God's 
moral  relation  to  man,  the  above  criticism  is  reinforced.  God,  who  is  the 
ontological  ground  of  the  world  of  nature  and  of  man,  is,  according  to 
Bowne,  also  the  moral  ruler  of  the  universe.  God  as  such  has  the 
absolute  control  of  all  things;  all  the  processes  of  nature  and  the  course 
of  hiraian  history  are  ultimately  determined  by  the  creative  will  of  the 
infinite.^^^  In  view  of  this  fact  that  God  has  absolute  control  over  the 
world,  all  its  forces  must  inevitably  work  toward  the  accompUshment  of 
the  divine  plan.  Evils  do  exist,  but  they  cannot  thwart  the  work  of  an 
omnipotent  God.  Whatever  finite  spirits  may  do  to  prevent  the  reali- 
zation of  the  purpose  of  the  infinite,  it  will  ultimately  be  accomplished. 
Fundamentally  it  would  not  make  very  much  difference  whether  the 
finite  spirits  work  for  or  against  the  divine  plan;  for  God  the  infinite 
being  will  finally  bring  it  to  its  consummation.^^^  But  Bowne  lays  great 
stress  on  the  necessity  of  moral  activity.    The  essence  of  religion,  for 

"8  Metaphysics,  pp.  100  f. 

i89  76iJ.,  p.  101. 

"»  Theism,  pp.  230  flf. 

^"  The  Essence  of  Religion^  p.  7. 


62  BEARING  or  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

him,  consists  in  righteousness,  and  not  in  reUgiosity.^^^  There  are 
mysteries  in  the  world;  but  we  are  not  to  speculate  upon  them;  what  we 
are  called  on  to  do  is  to  follow  the  will  of  God.^^^  In  our  Hfe  of  prayer, 
we  must  do  all  that  can  be  done  by  us  instead  of  relying  upon  God  to 
do  everything.^^  A  wonderful  transformation  in  the  world  will  take 
place  if  men  turn  to  love  God  and  their  neighbors  as  themselves.^^^ 
This  emphasis  of  Bowne  upon  the  necessity  of  practical  moral  activity 
must  inevitably  modify  his  conception  of  the  absoluteness  of  God. 
Men  become  conscious  of  unreality  in  their  moral  endeavors,  if  God  has 
the  absolute  control  of  their  moral  future,  and  if  they  cannot,  therefore, 
in  any  way,  change  the  course  of  their  moral  destiny.  Bowne  refuses 
philosophically  to  give  up  his  faith  in  the  absolute  purpose  and  govern- 
ment of  God.  But  from  the  standpoint  of  practical  morality  and  religion, 
he  has  done  so.  This  fact  appears,  for  instance,  in  such  words  as  these: 
"We  are  to  work  because  it  is  God  who  works  in  us.  We  cannot  work 
apart  from  God,  and  God  also  works  only  in  connection  with  our  work- 
ing. "^^  This  cooperative  activity  of  God  and  ourselves  is  what  we  find 
in  our  experience.  To  adhere  to  such  a  view  of  our  moral  and  religious 
relation  to  God  means,  however,  to  modify  the  conception  of  him  as  an 
absolute  or  infinite  being  whose  plan  for  the  world  is  eternally  fixed. 
There  are  thus  many  elements  in  Bowne's  system,  which  would  lead  to 
the  conception  of  God  as  a  metaphysical  and  moral  being  who  has  along 
with  him  other  persons  with  whom  he  is  closely  related  in  the  work  of 
creating  a  better  moral  community. 

We  may  conclude  our  criticism  of  Bowne's  solution  of  the  problems 
with  the  remark  that  there  appears  in  his  efforts,  as  we  found  in  those 
of  Royce  and  Eucken,  a  double  tendency:  a  tendency  to  maintain  the 
independence  of  God  from  the  world  of  time  and  history,  and  a  tendency 
to  conceive  of  him  in  terms  of  evolutionary  experience.  Metaphysi- 
cally the  former  tendency  predominates,  and  from  the  point  of  view  of 
practical  morality  and  religion,  the  latter  tendency  has  the  preeminence. 
But  even  from  the  standpoint  of  his  metaphysics  the  elements  of  empiri- 
cism cannot  be  said  to  be  absent,  for  we  have  referred  to  his  appeal  to 
experience  to  settle  some  metaphysical  problems.  So  then  these  ele- 
ments of  empiricism  in  Bowne's  solution  of  the  problems  show  distinctly 

192^-^.,  pp.  73ff. 

^93/6/J.,  pp.  46ff. 

"^  Ihid.,  127  ff. 

"«  Theism,  pp.  278  f. 

^*  The  Essence  of  Religion,  p.  237. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD    •  63 

the  influence  of  the  evolutionary  theory  on  his  method,  and  on  his 
conception  of  God. 

IV,     The  Solution  of  the  Problems  in  Jameses  Pragmatism 

William  James  represents  a  contemporary  movement  of  thought 
which  completely  accepts  the  evolutionary  theory  and  interprets  realities 
from  its  standpoint^^^  By  frankly  accepting  the  empirical  theory  of 
evolution,  pragmatism  is  the  most  radical  of  the  philosophies  of  reUgion 
with  which  we  are  concerned  in  this  study.  This  will  appear  as  we 
proceed  to  examine  James's  pragmatic  philosophy  and  his  conception  of 
God  with  a  special  reference  to  his  solution  of  the  problems. 

1.    James's  General  Pragmatic  Position. 

James  offers  pragmatism  as  a  philosophical  attitude  which  shall 
mediate  between  rationalism,  on  the  one  hand,  and  empiricism,  on  the 
other,  by  adhering  to  the  religious  interest  of  the  former  while  keeping 
the  empiricism  of  the  latter.^^^  Pragmatism,  according  to  James,  is  thus 
first  of  all  a  method.  It  is  a  method  which  attempts  to  solve  philosophical 
problems  with  reference  to  the  practical  consequences  of  the  notions 
involved  in  the  problems.  Pragmatism  deals,  for  instance,  with  the 
question  whether  the  world  is  one  or  many  by  pointing  out  the  differences 
in  life,  which  may  result  from  one  view  or  the  other.^^^  Pragmatism,  as  a 
method,  does  not  concern  itself  with  principles,  wholes,  universals,  but 
with  the  concrete,  empirical,  particular  facts  of  practical  life;  its  atten- 
tion is  directed  toward  an  inquiry  into  the  ascertainable  practical  aspects 
of  Hfe.^^''  From  this  point  of  view,  James  as  a  pragmatist  accepts  only 
those  things  which  are  actually  experienced.^^^  This  empirical  pragmatic 
method  leads  necessarily  to  certain  theories  some  of  which  we  must 
briefly  indicate. 

James  holds  that  our  ideas,  theories,  laws,  and  the  like  are  not  copies 
of  objective  realities;  but  rather  they  are  means  for  action — tools  for 
adjusting  ourselves  to  the  environing  realities.^^  True  ideas,  from  this 
point  of  view,  are  those  which  help  us  most  in  our  practical  life,  that  is, 
those  are  true  ideas  which  will  aid  us  successfully  to  attain  to  the  objects 

^"  Other  foremost  representatives  are  F.  C.  S.  Schiller  and  John  Dewey;  but 
James  has  most  seriously  undertaken  to  work  out  a  pragmatic  philosophy  of  religion. 

198  Pragmatism,  p.  33. 

199  Ibid.,  p.  45. 

200  Ibid,,  pp.  54  f . 

201  Essays  in  Radical  Empiricism,  pp.  42,  160  f.,  182;  The  Will  to  Believe,  pp.  vii  f. 

202  Ibid.,  pp.  56  f . 


64  BEARING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

of  our  desires,  and  so  give  us  the  maximal  combination  of  satisfactions.^o^ 
This  does  not  mean,  however,  that  the  objects  of  our  ideas  are  unreal.^^ 
But  it  does  mean  that  our  ideas  are  never  final.  If  our  old  ideas  have 
become  useless  to  us,  we  lay  them  aside  and  get  new  ideas  which  will 
really  help  us  in  our  life.  Thus  our  ideas  are  constantly  shifting  and 
changing  as  our  experiments  proceed. 

This  changing  nature  of  our  ideas  is  closely  connected  with  the 
changing  and  growing  aspect  of  all  reality.  Not  only  do  our  ideas  change 
but  also  the  realities  with  which  we  deal  change  and  grow.  Reality 
consists  of  the  flux  of  our  sensations,  the  relations  which  obtain  between 
them,  as  well  as  the  previous  truths  which  every  inquiry  must  take  up. 
These  elements  of  reahty  are  never  fij^ed;  we  have  a  great  part  to  play  in 
making  them  real  and  vital  to  our  life;  in  fact  we  add  new  factors  to 
reality.^^^    So  reality  is  not  ready-made,  but  it  is  forever  in  the  making.^^ 

This  conception  of  reality  as  changing  and  growing  is  related  to 
another  view  of  James  that  there  are  possibilities  for  novelties  in  the 
world.  The  world  is  not  fixed;  in  it  there  are  occurring  new  things  which 
surprise  us.  In  view  of  this  fact  James  would  agree  with  the  remark  of 
Bergson  that  the  doors  of  the  future  are  wide  open.  So  James  stands 
for  what  he  calls  the  chance  theory  of  moral  freedom,  according  to  which 
there  are  real  possibilities  for  doing  either  good  or  evil  in  the  world;  we 
cannot  tell  beforehand  what  we  shall  do  in  the  future;  but  we  have  to 
wait  for  the  moments  when  we  shall  choose  either  possibilities.^^^ 

Pragmatism,  with  its  empirical  method  of  dealing  with  reality,  leads, 
finally,  to  the  concept  of  a  pluralistic  universe.  It  is  the  contention  of 
James  that  the  facts  of  experience  do  not  warrant  the  theory  of  cosmic 
Unity  as  held  by  rationalism.  Rather  they  indicate  the  view  that  there 
are  many  forces  which  are  inter-related  in  a  more  or  less  external  way. 
"Pragmatically  interpreted,"  writes  James,  "pluralism  or  the  doctrine 
that  it  is  many  means  only  that  the  sundry  parts  of  reality  may  he  extern- 
ally related.  Everything  you  can  think  of,  however  vast  or  inclusive, 
has  on  the  pluralistic  view  a  genuinely  'external'  environment  of  some 
sort  or  amount.    Things  are  'with'  one  another  in  many  ways,  but 

203  Ibid.,  p.  58,  cf.  pp.  73,  201,  218;  Essays  in  Radical  Empiricism,  pp.  159,  253,  260. 

^^  The  Meaning  of  Truth,  pp.  xv  f.;  cf.  Essays  in  Radical  Empiricism,  pp.  247  fiF. 

208  Pragmatism,  pp.  239  ff.;  cf.  Essays  in  Radical  Empiricism,  pp.  193  ff. 

206  Yor  James'  characterization  of  the  difference  between  pragmatism  and  ration- 
alism on  this  point,  see  Pragmatism,  pp.  251-261. 

20'  The  Will  to  Believe,  Chap,  on  The  Delimma  of  Determinism;  Pragmatism, 
pp.  118  ff.;  Some  Problems  of  Philosophy,  Chaps.  IX  ff. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  65 

nothing  includes  everything,  dominates  over  everything.  .  .  .  The 
pluralistic  world  is  thus  more  like  a  federal  republic  than  like  an  empire 
or  kingdom.  However  much  may  be  collected,  however  much  report 
itself  as  present  at  any  effective  centre  of  consciousness  or  action,  some- 
thing else  is  self -governed  and  absent  and  unreduced  to  unity."  ^os 
These  are  the  essential  elements  in  the  pragmatism  of  James,  which  must 
be  considered  in  connnection  with  his  conception  of  God,  and  with  his 
solution  of  the  problems  which  we  are  considering, 

2.    James's  Conception  of  God. 

(1)     God  as  the  "More"  in  Human  Experience.  ^ 

James  holds  that,  from  a  strictly  empirical  point  of  view,  we  cannot 
deny  the  existence  of  a  world  beyond  our  finite  experience;  for  we  actually 
come  into  direct  contact  with  such  a  world.  (This  is  in  full  agreement 
with  his  contention  that  the  pragmatic  theory  of  ideas  does  not  signify 
the  unreality  of  their  objects.)  So  he  says  that  if  the  notion  of  a  world 
beyond  our  physical  world  aids  our  practical  life,  pragmatically  we  must 
accept  the  idea  of  such  a  world.^^^  This  empirical  attitude  of  James 
means  that  he  opposes  the  dogmatism  of  naturalism  which  maintains 
that  the  physical  world  is  the  only  world  and  that  there  is  no  other  world 
beyond  it.^^^  Religious  faith  means,  for  him,  a  belief  in  the  existence  of 
an  unseen  order  of  some  kind  beyond  this  natural  world.'^^  That  there 
exists  some  unseen  order  of  things  James  is  positively  certain.  We  are 
so  related  to  such  an  order  of  reality  that  we  must  take  some  positive 
attitude  toward  it.  Faith  in  this  unseen  realm  is  our  constitutional 
need.^2  But  how  are  we  related  to  this  unseen  universe  and  why  must 
we  assume  a  positive  attitude  toward  it?^^^ 

James  attempts,  in  this  work,  to  explain  the  "more"  in  our  experience 
by  the  theory  of  the  "subconscious  self."  He  suggests  that  "the  'more' 
with  which  in  religious  experience  we  feel  ourselves  connected  is  on  its 
hither  side  the  subconscious  continuation  of  our  conscious  life."^"  When 
we  inquire  into  this  subconscious  region,  we  find  that  conscious  persons 
are  continuous  with  a  wider  self  from  which  come  saving  experiences, 

20M  Pluralistic  Universe,  pp.  321  f.,  cf.  p.  325. 

209  Pragmatism,  pp.  267  ff. 

210  The  Will  to  Believe,  p.  52. 
="/Wrf.,  p.  51. 
2i2/fei^.,pp.  54ff. 

213  James's  theory  of  this  order  is  developed  at  length  in  his  work,  The  Varieties  of 
Religions  Experience. 
^'*  IMd.,  p.  512. 


66  BEARING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

with  an  enrichment  of  religious  Hfe  objectively  true  so  far  as  it  goes.^^^ 
(We  call  this  realm  a  supernatural  or  mystic  region.  Whatever  it  may 
be  called,  it  is  in  this  region  that  most  of  these  ideal  impulses  originate  of 
which  we  are  unable  to  give  articulate  account;  yet  to  this  realm  we  are 
more  intimately  related  even  than  to  this  visible  world.  This  unseen 
world  is  not,  moreover,  simply  an  ideal.  For  when  we  commune  with  this 
world  beyond  our  physical  order,  there  are  produced  in  us  practical 
effects;  we  are  turned  into  new  men,  and  so  our  manner  of  life  is  trans- 
formed.2^^  j  Hence  we  have  no  philosophical  reason  for  calling  this  realm 
unreal. 

James  connects  the  name  of  God  with  this  higher  part  of  the  sub- 
conscious realm) with  which  we  are  in  a  close  contact.  "God  is  the 
natural  appelation,"  he  says,  "for  us  Christians  at  least,  for  the  supreme 
reality,  so  I  call  this  higher  part  of  the  universe  by  the  name  of  God. 
We  and  God  have  business  with  each  other;  and  in  opening  ourselves  to 
his  influence  our  deepest  destiny  is  fulfilled.  "^^^  Our  personal  life  is 
made  better  or  worse  in  proportion  as  we  follow  the  demand  of  God. 
/Thus  God  is  real  because  he  produces  in  us  real  effects.^^^  To  say  that 
this  farther  side  of  our  experience  is  the  absolute  world-ruler,  is  of  course, 
a  considerable  over-belief.  This  over-belief  is  commonly  held.  It  may 
be  legitimate  to  the  extent  that  there  exists  another  world  which  has  its 
natural  constitution  different  from  this  material  order.^^^  James  con- 
fesses, however,  that  we  do  not  know  exactly  what  characteristic  divine 
facts  enter  into  our  life  from  the  hither  side  of  the  subliminal  region. 
But  he  holds  that  such  a  yonder  realm  does  actually  exist.  "The  whole 
drift  of  my  education,"  writes  James,  "goes  to  persuade  me  that  the 
world  of  our  present  consciousness  is  only  one  out  of  many  worlds  of 
consciousness  that  exist,  and  that  those  other  worlds  must  contain 
experiences  which  have  meaning  for  our  life  also;  and  that  although  in  the 
main  their  experiences  and  those  of  this  world  keep  discrete,  yet  the  two 
become  continuous  at  certain  points,  and  higher  energies  filter  in."^^^ 
/'Thus  James  maintains  his  faith  in  the  existence  of  a  larger  and  more 
significant  world  than  this  physical  world,  and  connects  the  former  with 
the  name  of  God.    He  is  led  to  this  position  by  the  concrete  practical 

216/iiJ.,  p.  515. 
2i8/6fJ.,  p.  516. 
2"/WJ.,  pp.  516f. 
218/6^.,  p.  517. 
"9/6^.,  p.  518. 
22o/^>«i.,p.  519. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  67 

effects  produced  by  this  yonder  world  in  the  life  of  the  individuals 
whenever  they  commune  with  it  through  their  prayers  and  other  exercises 
of  faith.  But  why  must  we  continue  to  affirm  the  existence  of  such  a 
world?  May  we  not  be  satisfied  with  what  physical  scientists  tell  us 
as  to  the  "  real"  world?  This  leads  to  another  aspect  of  his  conception  of 
God,  where  James  gives  his  pragmatic  answer  to  the  above  question. 

(2)     God  as  a  Practical  Moral  Necessity. 

James  postulates  the  "more"  in  human  experience  as  represented  by 
our  common  religious  object,  God,  on  the  ground  of  psychological  and 
practical  effects  produced  in  our  life.  It  is  on  the  same  grounds  that 
he  considers  God  as  an  elemental  necessity  in  human  life.  In  analyzing 
the  ethical  life  of  man,  James  discovers  there  two  types  of  mood — the 
strenuous  and  easy-going.  The  latter  is  based  on  prudence  and  natural 
himian  clauns.  He  indicates  that  the  merely  human  claims  do  not 
produce  in  us  strenuous  moral  life.  A  merely  human  world  without  a 
God  to  lay  his  claims  upon  us  does  not  furnish  to  our  moral  life  its  needed 
stimulating  power.  If  we  believe  that  there  is  a  God  who  makes  his 
high  moral  claims  upon  us,  we  are  stimulated  by  the  claims  to  a  rigorous 
moral  life.^^  For  the  sake,  then,  of  living  a  strenuous  moral  life,  we 
would  affirm  the  existence  of  a  God.^  But  this  is  not,  however,  the 
only  reason  that  leads  us  to  affirm  the  existence  of  God  as  a  moral  neces- 
sity. 

Our  spiritual  world,  according  to  James,  must  contain  a  God,  for 
without  him  our  future  would  be  dark,  our  ideals  and  hopes  would 
lack  the  possibility  of  their  realization,  and  hence  there  would  be  no 
assurance  of  any  victory  to  our  struggles.  It  is  for  these  reasons  that 
James  sets  aside  all  materialistic  substitutes  for  the  theistic  faith.^ 
James  holds  that  so  far  as  the  past  of  the  world  is  concerned,  there  is  no 
essential  practical  difference  whether  we  deem  it  the  work  of  matter  or  of 
spirit;  but  it  makes  a  great  difference  in  regard  to  the  future  of  the 
world.^  What  does  the  world  promise?  Can  matter  promise  a  world 
which  goes  to  nearer  and  nearer  perfection?  Scientific  materialism,  in 
the  thought  of  James,  promises  nothing  but  a  cold  death  of  the  world. 
It  does  not  hold  out  to  us  that  goods  are  in  store  for  us  in  the  future. 
AU  goods  will  be  gone.^    Scientffic  materialism  then  does  not  warrant 

221  The  Will  to  Believe,  p.  212. 

222/6/^.,  p.  213. 

223  Ibid.,  p.  134. 

22^  Pragmatism,  pp.  96  ff. 

225  Ibid.,  p.  105. 


68  BEARING  or  THE  E\'OLUTIONARY  THEORY 

the  realization  of  our  ideal  hopes.^^^  Spiritualism,  on  the  contrary, 
with  its  notion  of  God,  gives  us  an  assurance  of  the  success  of  the  world. 
"A  world  with  a  God  in  it  to  say  the  last  word,"  writes  James,  "may 
indeed  burn  or  freeze,  but  we  think  of  him  still  mindful  of  the  old  ideals 
and  sure  to  bring  them  elsewhere  to  fruition;  so  that,  where  he  is,  tragedy 
is  provisional  and  partial,  and  shipwreck  and  dissolution  not  the  final 
things.  This  need  of  an  eternal  moral  order  is  one  of  the  deepest  needs 
of  our  breast ,"22^  The  essential  difference  between  these  two  systems 
lies,  not  in  their  metaphysics,  but  in  this:  "Materialism  means  simply 
the  denial  that  the  moral  world  is  eternal,  and  the  cutting  off  of  ultimate 
hopes;  spiritualism  means  the  affirmation  of  an  eternal  moral  order  and 
the  letting  loose  of  hope."^^^  Thus  James  stands  with  those  who  affirm 
the  existence  of  a  God  as  a  practical  moral  necessity.  The  godless 
universe  is,  for  James,  like  the  automatic  person  who  may  do  for  us 
mechanically  those  things  which  a  Hving  person  performs;  yet  the  former 
lacks  the  personal  touch  and  interest  of  the  latter,  which  men  crave.^^ 
With  the  affirmation  of  God  as  a  practical  moral  necessity  there 
emerges  the  question  whether  James  conceives  of  him  as  the  absolute 
guarrantor  of  our  final  moral  victory.  It  should  frankly  be  said  that 
James  does  not  commit  himself  to  the  view  that  God  gives  us  such  an 
assurance.  The  forces  of  evil  and  of  good  are  really  in  the  world,  and 
they  are  competing  with  each  other  for  mastery.  Our  ultimate  victory- 
depends  upon  the  vigor  and  success  of  the  cooperative  activity  of  our- 
selves and  God.  ,  With  regard  to  this  matter,  James  stands  for  the 
melioristic  view  as  to  the  ultimate  future  of  the  world,  that  is,  the  world 
[may  be  saved  in  the  end,  but  we  are  not  now  sure  of  its  final  victory.^^o 
(Thus  the  world  contains  real  ventures,  chances,  risks,  possibilities  for 
either  losing  or  winning — a  real  game  of  life,  the  success  of  which  depends 
on  the  cooperative  activity  of  all  the  agents  concerned.^^i  While  God 
does  not  promise  us  the  guaranteed  victory  of  our  moral  world,  yet  he 
does,  through  his  active  interest  in  our  struggles,  hold  up  before  us  the 
hope  that  there  is  an  eternal  moral  order  and  that  we  may  finally  suc- 
ceed. On  this  account  we  must  have  God  on  our  side  in  the  game  of 
life.  What  then  is  the  nature  of  this  God?  We  may  now  turn  to  James's 
answer  to  this  question. 

226  Ihid.,  p.  106. 

227  Ihid.,  pp.  106  f.;  cf.  The  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience,  p.  517. 

228  Pragmatism,  p.  107. 

229  The  Meaning  of  Truth,  footnote,  pp.  189  f. 

230  Pragmatism,  pp.  232  ff.,  290  ff. 

231  75^-^^  pp  296  f. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  69 

(3)     God  as  a  Superhuman,  Finite  Personality. 

James  sets  forth  his  conception  of  the  nature  of  God  in  opposition  to 
that  held  by  monistic  idealism  and  rational  theology.  But  he  does  not 
dogmatically  deny  all  truth  to  the  absolutist  theory  of  God.  As  a  good 
pragmatist,  James  says  that  he  has  no  rationahst  bias  against  such  a 
theory.  The  Absolute  is  true  in  so  far  as  it  affords  the  assurance  that 
the  world  in  reality  is  good,  so  that  men  who  trust  in  it  may  take  moral 
hoHdays.^^  Can  I  then  accept  the  Absloute?  asks  James.  In  regard 
to  this  question  he  points  out  that  if  any  idea  or  beUef  helps  us  to  lead  a 
better  life,  we  should  accept  that  idea  unless  our  beUef  in  it  clashes  with 
our  greater  vital  benefits.^  In  accordance  with  this  principle  he  rejects 
the  Absolute,  because  the  acceptance  of  it  conflicts  with  his  other  vital 
interests.^^  The  main  considerations  for  his  rejection  of  the  Absolute 
may  be  summarized  as  follows:  The  theory  of  the  Absolute  as  the  all- 
inclusive  consciousness  of  the  universe  is  logically  untenable  ;^^  the  view 
of  the  Absolute  as  possessing  one  absolute  purpose  for  the  world  is  in 
contradiction  to  the  real  dangers,  risks,  possibiUties,  novelties  which  we 
find  in  actual  experience  ;^^  the  idea  of  the  Absolute  as  eternally  perfect 
is  inconsistent  with  the  existing  imperfections  in  the  world  ;^^  and, 
finally,  the  conception  of  the  Absolute  as  free  from  the  experiences  of 
suffering,  struggle,  time,  history,  change  and  growth  creates  the  sense 
that  God  is  alien  to  our  problems.^^  Thus  it  is  evident  that  what  James 
objects  to  in  the  monistic  as  well  as  the  scholastic  conceptions  of  God 
is  their  view  of  him  as  eternally  complete  and  perfect.  With  this  rejec- 
tion of  the  Absolute,  James  proceeds  to  outline  his  conception  of  God 
from  the  viewpoint  of  his  pragmatism. 

In  accordance  with  his  general  philosophical  position  James  sets 
aside  all  the  infinite  attributes  with  which  God  had  been  endowed  by 
philosophy  and  theology,  and  conceives  of  him  in  terms  of  finitude  and 
relativity.  The  extensive  study  he  has  made  in  regard  to  religious 
experience  cannot  be  cited,  he  holds,  to  support  the  infinitist  conception 
of  God.  "The  only  thing  that  it  unequivocally  testifies  is  that  we  can 
experience  union  with  something  larger  than  ourselves  and  in  that  union 

^  Ibid.,  pp.  73  fiF.;  cf.  A  Pluralistic  Universe,  pp.  113  f. 
^  Pragmatism,  p.  76. 
"^  Ibid.,  pp.  7SS. 

^A  Pluralistic  Universe,  pp.  198  ff.;  Some  Problems  of  Philosophy,  p.  138;  Prag- 
matism, pp.  145  ff. 

^Pragmatism,  pp.  140  ff.;  Some  Problems  of  Philosophy,  pp.  139  f. 

23M  Pluralistic  Universe,  pp.  123  f.;  Some  Problems  of  Philosophy,  p.  138. 

^^A  Pluralistic  Universe,  pp.  47  ff.;  Some  Problems  of  Philosophy,  p.  139. 


70  BEARING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

find  our  greatest  peace. ' '^^    Philosophy  and  mysticism  identify  this  some- 
thing larger  with  God  who  is  the  all-inclusive  soul  of  the  universe. 

^"Meanwhile,"  continues  James,  "the  practical  needs  and  experiences  of 
rehgion  seem  to  me  sufficiently  met  by  the  belief  that  beyond  each  man 
and  in  a  fashion  continuous  with  him  there  exists  a  larger  power  which  is 
friendly  to  him  and  to  his  ideals.  All  that  the  facts  require  is  that  the 
power  should  be  both  other  and  larger  than  ourselves.  Anything  larger 
will  do,  if  only  it  be  large  enough  to  trust  for  the  next  step.  It  need  not 
be  infinite,  it  need  not  be  solitary.  "^^^  There  may  be  a  collection  of  such 
larger  selves,  with  different  degrees  of  inclusiveness,  with  no  absolute 
unity  realized  in  it  at  all.  So  a  sort  of  polytheism  returns  upon  us.) 
It  is  the  pluralism  of  James  that  leads  him  to  take  this  view  of  God. 
But  he  does  not  dogmatize  on  this  point. 

God,  then,  who  is  identified  with  this  something  larger  element  of 
religion,  is  a  superhuman,  finite,  growing  personaHty.  Unlike  the  God 
of  rationalism,  the  God  of  James  is  one  of  many  beings  in  a  pluralistic 
universe.    Pluralistically  conceived,  his  God  is  "one  of  the  eaches."^^ 

'  Such  a  finite  God,  in  the  thought  of  James,  is  identical  with  the  God  of 
popular  Christianity.  "The  God  of  popular  Christianity  is  but  one 
member  of  a  pluralistic  system.  ...  I  can  hardly  conceive  of  anything 
more  diflferent  from  the  absolute  than  the  God,  say,  of  David  or  of 
Isaiah.  That  God  is  essentially  finite  being  in  the  cosmos,  not  with  the 
cosmos  in  him,  and  indeed  he  has  very  local  habitation  there,  and  very 
onesided  local  and  personal  attachments.  ...  I  believe  that  the  only 
God  worthy  of  the  name  musi  be  finite. "^^^  In  order  to  be  consistent 
with  our  common  experience  and  to  get  out  of  the  monistic  difficulties, 
both  philosophy  and  theology  should  accept,  "along  with  the  super- 
human consciousness,  the  notion  that  it  is  not  all-embracing,  the  notion, 
in  other  words,  that  there  is  a  God,  but  that  he  is  finite,  either  in  power 
or  in  knowledge,  or  in  both."243  While  the  God  of  James  is  like  us  in 
his  experiences  of  struggle,  st;riving,  change,  and  growth,  yet  he  is  far 
greater  being  than  ourselves.  /  He  is  to  be  conceived  of  "as  the  deepest 
power  in  the  universe,"  a  mental  personality  distinct  from  and  yet 
related  to  our  personalities,  a  power  not  ourselves  "which  not  only 
makes  for  righteousness,  but  means  it,  and  which  recognizes  us."^^    ; 

23^  The  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience,  p.  525. 

2"  Ibid.,  p.  525. 

^^  A  Pluralistic  Universe,  p.  44. 

^'Ubid.,pp.  110  f.,  125. 

^  Ibid.,  p.  311. 

^  The  Will  to  Believe,  p.  122. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  71 

Because  of  the  finiteness  of  his  God,  James  holds  that  he  and  we  are 
closely  related  in  our  common  task  of  creating  a  better  world.  "Having 
an  environment,  being  in  time,  and  working  out  a  history  just  like 
ourselves,  he  escapes  from  the  foreignness  from  all  that  is  human,  of 
the  static  timeless  perfect  absolute.  "^^  Thus  he  and  we  stand  shoulder 
to  shoulder  in  the  process  of  self-realization  and  of  working  out  a  better 
moral  order  in  an  indefinite  future.  Evils  exist  in  the  world.  God  and 
we  work  together  to  lessen  their  amount  or  crush  them  out  of  existence. 
In  this  struggle  for  a  better  world,  God  being  greater  than  we,  does 
the  work  more  effectively  than  ourselves.  Yet  he  cannot  do  it  all;  we 
must  cooperate  with  him  in  this  great  work. 

Not  only  are  we  thus  practically  related  with  God,  but  also  we  find 
ourselves  in  a  close  psychological  relation  with  him.  The  rehgious 
experiences  of  men  point  to  the  belief  that  we  are  related  with  a  large 
spiritual  environment.  Moreover,  aU  the  empirical  evidences  seem  "to 
sweep  us  very  strongly  towards  the  behef  in  some  form  of  superhuman 
life  with  which  we  may,  unknown  to  ourselves,  be  co-conscious."^  So 
we  are  practically  and  psychologically  in  an  intimate  relation  with  God, 
which  is  made  possible  by  the  fact  that  he  and  we  are  fundamentally 
one  in  nature.^^^ 

3.     Criticism  of  James'  Solution  of  the  Problems. 

Much  has  been  said,  in  our  discussion  of  James'  conception  of  God, 
to  show  that  in  his  philosophy  of  reUgion  we  find  a  thoroughgoing  use 
and  appHcation  of  those  principles  of  empiricism  which  characterize  the 
scientific  investigations  of  our  age.  In  the  other  philosophies  of  religion 
which  we  have  studied,  while  the  element  of  empiricism  was  not  absent, 
it  was  not  the  pivot  around  which  these  philosophies  turned.  The  deter- 
mining factor  in  them  was  something  wholly  or  partially  underivable  in 
and  through  the  actual  experiences  of  life,  something  assumed  a  priori 
as  the  all-conditioning  principle  of  their  procedure.  And  what  enabled 
them  to  posit  such  a  principle  is  the  intellect  which  is  deemed,  in  the  main, 
the  highest  category  of  human  life  (Eucken  forms  a  possible  exception; 
but  even  for  him,  thought,  when  it  is  grounded  in  an  independent  spiritual 
life,  enables  us  to  get  at  the  heart  of  reaUty.).  In  James,  for  the  first 
time  in  the  course  of  our  investigation,  do  we  observe  that  all  the  a 
priori  elements  and  intellectualism  of  the  preceding  systems  of  philosophy 
are  abandoned,  and  that  an  effort  is  made  to  formulate  a  doctrine  of  God 

^  A  Pluralistic  Universe,  p.  318. 
^  Ibid.,  p.  309. 
2*7  ihU.,  p.  34. 


72  BEARING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

on  the  basis  of  empirical  investigation.  Moreover,  in  order  to  give 
meaning  and  basis  to  the  actual  experiences  of  Ufe,  Royce,  Eucken,  and 
Bowne  have  all  attempted  to  maintain  that  behind  the  mirror  of  our 
present  existence  there  exists  an  eternal  order  which  is  our  real  home. 
James,  on  the  contrary,  has  given  up  all  notion  of  a  duplicate  universe; 
for  him  there  is  only  one  world,  the  world  of  our  common  experience 
where  realities  are  ever  in  the  process  of  making,  where  our  deeds  are 
done,  where  our  goods  are  achieved;  and  he  is  fully  satisfied  with  this 
world  made  real  to  us  in  and  through  our  concrete,  practical  experience 
(True,  James  is  constantly  seeking  to  discover  more  and  more  of  the 
depth  and  significance  of  the  one  world;  but  he  does  not  ask  for  a  second 
world  that  cannot  be  experienced  by  us.).  Thus  the  most  significant 
feature  in  his  philosophy  of  religion  is  his  empiricism  in  method  and  in 
theory.  Hence  our  criticism  must  be  undertaken  in  full  recognition  of 
these  facts. 

James,  to  begin  with,  has  completely  set  aside  the  revelation-method 
of  traditional  theology  and  the  apriori-intellectualistic  dialectic  of  all 
speculative  systems  of  philosophy.  He  makes  use  of  a  thoroughgoing 
empirical  method  in  the  formulation  of  his  conception  of  God.  This 
does  not  mean,  of  course,  that  James  employs  the  categories  of  physical 
sciences  in  dealing  with  the  problem  of  God,  nor  that  he  follows  the 
intellectualistic  procedure  which  usually  marks  the  inductive  formulation 
of  natural  science;  but  it  signifies,  on  the  contrary,  that  he  adopts  the 
same  scientific  spirit  which  is  manifested  in  all  scientific  works,  and 
carries  it  out  in  his  investigations  in  the  higher  realms  of  reality.  An 
anti-intellectualistic,  voluntaristic-emotional,  psychological  empiricism  is 
what  James  uses  in  dealing  with  man  and  God.  We  need  not  dwell 
longer  on  this  general  empirical  method. 

But  a  word  should  be  said  concerning  the  individualistic  aspect  of  his 
method,  which  is  specially  marked  in  his  discussion  of  religious  experience. 
Religion,  according  to  James,  means  for  us  "the  feelings,  acts,  and  experi- 
ences of  individual  men  in  their  solitude,  so  far  as  they  apprehend  themselves 
to  stand  in  relation  to  whatever  they  may  consider  divine ^^^  Defining 
religion  thus  in  terms  of  individual  relationship,  James  does  not  con- 
cern himself  with  the  social  aspects  of  religion  which  find  expression 
in  liturgies,  theologies,  ecclesiastical  organizations;  but  he  deals  pri- 
marily with  the  individual  cases  of  religion.  ''The  pivot  around  which 
the  religious  life,  as  we  have  traced  it,  revolves,"  writes  James,  "is  the 

2*8  The  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience,  p.  31. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  73 

interest  of  the  individual  in  his  private  destiny.  Religion,  in  short,  is  a 
monumental  chapter  in  the  history  of  human  egoism.  .  .  .  ReUgious 
thought  is  carried  on  in  terms  of  personality,  this  being,  in  the  world  of 
religion,  the  one  fundamental  fact."^^^  It  is  in  the  reahn  of  individual 
feelings  that  we  come  into  the  depth  of  reality .^°  Thus  with  his  affirma- 
tion of  the  primacy  of  individual  feehngs,  James  sets  forth  a  kind  of 
reUgious  mysticism  over  against  the  intellectualistic  veiw  of  religion. 
Individuality  and  feelings  are  organically  related.  "  IndividuaUty  is 
founded  in  feeUng;  and  the  recesses  of  feeling,  the  darker,  bUnder  strata 
of  character,  are  the  only  places  in  the  world  in  which  we  catch  real 
fact  in  the  making,  and  directly  perceive  how  events  happen,  and  how 
work  is  actually  done."'^^  But  it  is  doubtful  whether  we  have  to  get 
at  the  content  of  religious  experience  through  the  avenue  of  purely 
individual  expressions,  as  James  holds.  It  seems,  in  view  of  the  fact 
that  both  the  individual  and  social  expressions  of  reUgion  are  organic 
parts  of  the  on-going  process  of  religious  evolution,  that  we  need  to 
take  account,  in  dealing  with  religion,  of  both  these  elements.  By  follow- 
ing this  more  comprehensive  method  rather  than  the  atomistic  procedure 
of  James,  there  opens  up  to  us  a  vast  field  for  investigating  reUgion — 
we  can  now  view  reUgion  in  its  historical  and  social  connections,  and 
not  merely  in  its  isolated  individual  expressions.^^  If  James  were  true 
to  his  thoroughgoing  empirical  attitude  toward  all  the  facts  of  experience, 
he  should  make  use  of  the  data  on  religion  obtainable  through  its  social 
expressions  as  well  as  its  indi\ddual  expressions.^^ 

With  regard  to  his  attitude  toward  science,  it  is  to  be  remarked,  first, 
that  James  gives  a  full  recognition  to  the  practical  value  of  scientific 
work.2^  But  this  acceptance  of  the  results  of  science  is  not  equivalent 
to  viewing  its  laws  as  Hteral  copies  of  reality.  Practically  all  the  so- 
called  laws  of  science,  in  the  thought  of  James,  "are  only  approxima- 
tions. .  .  .  They  are  only  a  man-made  language,  a  conceptual  short- 
hand, as  some  one  calls  them,  in  which  we  write  our  reports  of  nature."^ 

249BtJ.,  p.  491,  cf.  p.  501. 

25o/6i^.,  pp.  498ff. 

^^  Ibid.,  pp.  501  S. 

^2  See  Ames,  The  Psychology  of  Religious  Experience,  and  I.  King,  The  Development 
of  Religion. 

^^  For  criticism  of  James'  method,  see  Royce,  The  Sources  of  Religious  Insight, 
pp.  61  ff.;  Faber,  Das  Wesen  der  Religions psychologie  und  ihre  Bedeutungfiir  die  Dogma- 
tik,  pp.  25  ff.,  cf.  pp.  101  ff. 

254  Pragmatism,  pp.  186  ff . 

^  Ibid.,  p.  57. 


/ 


74  BEARING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 


They  are  simply  our  hypotheses  which  are  useful  to  us  in  our  dealings 
with  nature.  Further,  we  have  already  had  occasion  to  remark  that 
James  is  opposed  to  the  scientific  materialism  which  results  from  the 
success  of  science,  because  it  is  opposed  to  the  ideal  interests  of  men.^^ 
And,  finally,  James  is  not  content  with  the  view  that  the  revelations  of 
natural  science  are  all  that  there  are  to  reality.  Beyond  our  physical 
order,  there  is  an  unseen  spiritual  realm  whose  nature  our  physical 
science  cannot  determine.^^  In  regard  to  our  moral  problems  science 
cannot  give  us  the  answer  we  need,  so  that  we  must  consult "  our  heart.  "^^ 
Science  deals  with  its  elements,  laws,  and  the  processes  of  nature  regard- 
less of  their  bearing  on  human  life.  But  James  contends  that  it  is  not 
through  our  dealing  with  reality  in  terms  of  cosmic  laws  and  processes 
that  we  come  to  the  heart  of  reality;  but  rather  "as  soon  as  we  deal  with 
private  and  personal  phenomena  as  such,  we  deal  with  realities  in  the 
completest  sense  of  the  term.^'^^  Thus  James  from  the  standpoint  of  his 
distinctly  human  interest  rightly  opposes  the  extravagant  claims  of 
uncritical  naturalism,  so  often  made  in  the  name  of  natural  science. 

To  speak  next  of  James's  attitude  toward  the  traditional  conception 
of  God  as  transcendent  personality,  we  find  that  he  is  in  opposition  to 
its  arbitrary  and  realistic  aspects.  He  cannot  tolerate  the  idea  of  God 
as  a  sovereign  monarch  who  saves  some  and  damns  others  in  an  arbi- 
trary fashion.^^^  Moreover,  for  James,  the  traditional  conception  of  God 
as  totally  distinct  from  the  world,  all  complete  unto  himself  from  eternity, 
leaves  us  foreigners  to  the  deepest  reality  of  the  universe.  James  holds 
that  the  tendency  of  thought  in  our  time  is  for  *'the  pantheistic  field  of 
vision,  the  vision  of  God  as  the  indwelling  divine  rather  than  the  external 
creator,  and  of  human  life  as  part  and  parcel  of  that  deep  reahty."^^^ 
He  stands  with  this  tendency  of  thought  and  conceives  of  God  in  terms 
of  intimate  relationship  with  men.^^^ 

This  leads  us  to  James's  solution  of  the  problem  of  God  as  the  abso- 
lute being.  Royce,  Eucken,  and  Bowne  have  all  conceived  of  God  in 
terms  of  dynamic  immanence.  But  they  have  exempted  God  from  the 
process  of  change  and  growth  which  mark  our  empirical  world.     God  is 

25«  See  above,  pp.  67  f . 

267  The  Will  to  Believe,  pp.  52  f. 

268  Ibid.,  p.  22. 

269  The  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience,  p.  489. 
^^Ibid.,  pp.  329  f.;  cf.  A  Pluralistic  Universe,  p.  30. 
2*^  A  Pluralistic  Universe,  p.  30,  cf.  pp.  24.  ff . 

2«2/6i(/.,  p.  34. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  75 

essentially  immutable.  James,  however,  has  given  up  all  static  notion 
of  reaUty;  for  him  all  realities  are  forever  in  the  process  of  making.  This 
is  what  he  finds  in  experience.  Hence  God,  who  is  vitally  related  to  this 
evolving  world,  is  also  changing  and  growing;  the  time-process  is  not 
an  illusion  or  appearance  to  him;  he  has  history  just  like  any  human 
being.  Consequently,  the  God  of  James  is  essentially  a  finite  being, 
a  member  in  a  pluralistic  universe.  This  conception  of  the  finiteness  of 
his  God  is  repugnant  not  only  to  absolutistic  philosophers  but  also  to  all 
the  theologians  who  wish  to  retain  the  traditional  doctrine  of  God  as  a 
perfect  being.  But  it  is  noteworthy  in  this  connection  that  when  the 
theologians  oppose  the  idea  of  a  limited  God,  they  do  so  largely  on  philo- 
sophical grounds,  and  not  usually  on  religious  grounds.  Ever  since  the 
Christian  religion  came  in  touch  with  the  philosophically  trained  Greek 
Christians,  notably  the  Apologists,  there  have  been  present  in  Christian 
theology  two  interests,  the  rehgious  and  philosophical.  The  philo- 
sophical interest  of  Christian  theology  has  always  sought  to  conceive  of 
God  in  terms  of  infinitude,  while  its  religious  interest  has  held  to  the  view 
of  God  as  a  being  who  is  striving  with  the  struggles  of  his  people,  hence 
essentially  a  limited  God.  But  Christian  theologians,  on  the  whole 
(with  the  possible  exception  of  Ritschl),  have  not  seen  the  antithesis  in- 
volved in  these  two  conceptions;  they  have  rather  interpreted  the  finite 
aspects  of  the  Gk)d  of  religion  in  terms  of  an  absolute  and  infinite  being 
of  philosophy.  In  the  pragmatic  religion  of  James,  we  find,  for  the 
first  time  the  two  antithetical  conceptions  of  God  brought  to  a  sharp 
issue.  He  has  pointed  out  that  the  God  of  ordinary  Christianity  is  but  a 
member  in  a  pluralistic  imiverse.^  Such  a  conception  of  God,  no  doubt, 
has  been  held  by  Christians  in  their  practical  moral  and  rehgious  life. 
And  it  is  for  practical  reasons,  in  the  main,  that  James  advocates  his  view 
of  God  as  a  finite  being  who  is  striving  with  us  in  our  conmion  task  of 
creating  a  better  world.  He  cannot  accept  the  Absolute  who  is  the  all- 
inclusive  being  of  the  universe  and  who  has  absolutely  determined  the 
course  of  the  world;  so  that  the  world  presents  no  new  possibihties. 
James  would  rather  have  a  God  who  is  not  absolutely  sure  of  the  world's 
outcome  than  to  beUeve  in  a  supreme  deity  who  has  absolute  control 
over  the  destiny  of  the  universe  in  all  its  details.^  For  a  world  with 
open  possibihties  in  it  is  far  more  desirable  than  a  world  whose  destiny 
is  eternally  fixed. 

^A  Pluralistic  Universe,  p.  110. 
^  The  Will  to  Believe,  pp.  181  ff. 


76  BEARING  OF  ITIE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

James'  sort  of  God  and  of  the  world  are,  on  the  whole,  in  line  with 
the  standpoint  of  the  evolutionary  theory.  God  and  the  world  from 
the  viewpoint  of  the  evolutionary  theory  must,  it  seems,  be  conceived 
of  in  terms  of  change  and  growth,  hence  in  finite  terms.  The  trend  of 
the  empirical  investigations  of  science  and  the  spread  of  the  evolutionary 
view  of  the  universe  seem  to  point  towards  this  conclusion. 

To  conceive  of  God  as  a  finite  being,  however,  does  not  mean  to  hold 
him  as  a  very  insignificant  reality.  "The  finite  God  whom  I  contrast 
with  it  (the  absolute),"  says  James,  "may  conceivably  have  almost 
nothing  outside  of  himself;  he  may  have  triumphed  over  and  absorbed 
all  but  the  minutest  fraction  of  the  universe;  but  that  fraction,  however 
small,  reduces  him  to  the  status  of  a  relative  being,  and  in  principle  the 
universe  is  saved  from  the  irrationalities  incident  to  absolutism.  "^^^ 
Thus  the  God  of  James,  who  is  reached  from  the  viewpoint  of  a  pluralis- 
tic universe,  is  a  finite  being  in  the  sense  that  he  does  not  include  all 
beings.  "A  theism,"  remarks  Ward,  "that  is  reached  through  pluralism 
can  never  end  in  an  Absolute  in  which  God  and  the  World  alike  were 
absorbed  and  lost:  the  only  Absolute  then  that  we  can  admit  is  the 
Absolute  which  God  and  the  World  constitute.  "^^^  This  is  practically 
what  James  means  when  he  conceives  of  God  as  a  finite,  relative  being 
who  is  closely  related  to  us  in  our  struggles,  conflicts  with  the  forces  of 
the  antagonistic  world  to  create  a  better  moral  order.^^^  Thus  the 
conception  of  God  as  a  finite  being  is  not  after  all  so  radical  as  it  at  first 
sight  appears.  And  this  conception  of  God  is  wholly  in  harmony  with 
the  avowed  empiricism  of  James. 

One  other  remark  we  need  to  make  in  this  connection  is  in  regard  to 
James'  view  of  the  relation  between  God  and  the  world.  The  primary 
interest  of  James,  as  we  have  seen,  is  not  to  seek  in  God  the  metaphysical 
explanatory  principle  of  the  universe,  but  rather  to  find  in  him  a  spiritual 
reality  which  is  in  close  relation  with  men  in  their  struggles  to  create  a 
better  world.  It  is  the  practical  moral  religious  needs  of  men  that  first 
of  all  lead  them  to  God  for  their  satisfaction.  "The  gods  we  stand  by," 
writes  James,  "are  the  gods  we  need  and  can  use,  the  gods  whose  demand 
on  us  are  reinforcements  of  our  demands  on  ourselves  and  on  one  an- 
other. "^^^  One  of  the  considerations  which  leads  James  to  view  God 
pluralistically  (He,  however,  in  his  later  book,  A  Pluralistic  Universe, 

^  A  Pluralstic  Universe,  pp.  125. 

2««  The  Realm  of  Ends,  pp.  141  f . 

^''  A  Pluralistic  Universe,  p.  312. 

268  The  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience,  p.  331. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  77 

says  that  "word  'polytheism'  usually  gives  offence,  so  perhaps  it  is  better 
not  to  use  it"^^)  is  his  intense  human  interest  in  religious  matters. 

If,  then,  we  conceive  of  God  as  vitally  related  to  us  in  our  moral 
and  reHgious  tasks,  and  as  standing  for  the  ideal  tendencies  in  life,  we 
are  not  necessarily  called  upon  to  specualte  as  to  the  problem  of  evil 
or  how  the  world  came  to  be.  Evil  is  one  of  the  principles  in  the  world, 
which  has  no  rational  or  absolute  right  to  its  existence;  we  need  simply 
to  put  it  out  of  existence.^^*'  So  it  is  in  regard  to  the  ontological  problem 
of  the  world.  James,  in  contrast  to  Royce,  Eucken,  and  Bowne  who 
have  more  or  less  sought  to  solve  this  problem,  does  not  attempt  to  set 
forth  his  view  of  God's  causal  relation  to  the  world.  He  turns  away 
from  the  Whence  and  Why  of  the  world  which  he  regards  as  the  darkest 
problems  in  philosophy,  to  a  more  practical  inquiry  into  the  What  of 
realtiy.^^^  He  cannot  bear  the  thought  of  natural  theology  that  God  is 
revealed  in  nature  so  that  we  may  worship  her  God,  because  he  says 
that  we  know  too  well  the  processes  of  nature  as  to  consider  her  as  the 
adequate  expression  of  God.^^^  Yet  James  does  not  dogmatically  deny 
that  God  is  causally  related  to  the  world  of  nature.  As  regards  the 
question  of  design  in  nature,  for  instance,  he  holds  that  what  he  is  con- 
cerned to  know  is  what  design  and  what  designer  are  there  in  the  process 
of  nature;  but  the  only  way  to  ascertain  them  is  through  the  study  of 
facts.  Since,  however,  these  facts  are  not  as  yet  adequate  to  give  us  a 
clear  insight  into  the  nature  of  design  and  designer,  we  have  to  be  con- 
tent with  a  certain  pragmatic  benefit,  a  promise  of  success,  if  we  consider 
that  there  are  in  nature  a  divine  design  and  designer.^^^  And  with 
respect  to  the  general  problem  of  teleology,  James  does  not  hold  that 
there  are  no  purposes  in  the  world.  He  is  simply  opposed  to  the  idea  of 
one  absolute  purpose  to  which  all  things  must  be  subservient.^^"^  Hence 
it  should  be  observed  here  that  while  James  contends  for  the  view  that 
the  existence  and  character  of  God  are  finally  to  be  seen  in  personal 
reHgious  experience,^^^  he  is  not  antagonistic  to  the  theory  that  God  may 
be  causally  related  to  the  world.  This  seems  to  be  his  attitude  when  he 
says:  "Truth  of  'God'  has  to  run  the  same  gauntlet  of  all  other  truths. 

2«9  P.  310. 

2^°  The  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience,  pp.  131  f.;  A  Pluralistk  Universe,  p.  124, 

2'^  Some  Problems  of  Philosophy,  p.  46. 

272  The  Will  to  Believe,  pp.  43  f.;  cf.  The  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience,  pp.  491  ff. 

273  Pragmatism,  pp.  1 13  ff . 
274/Jw;.,  pp.  140  ff. 

2'^  The  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience,  pp.  498  ff . 


78  BEARING  or  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

It  is  on  trial  by  them  and  they  on  trial  by  it.  Our  final  opinion  about 
God  can  be  settled  only  after  all  the  truths  straighten  themselves  out 
together.  Let  us  hope  that  they  shall  find  a  modus  vivendir'  ^^^  Thus 
for  James  the  problem  of  God,  as  all  other  problems,  is  always  an  open 
problem;  he  is  ready  to  receive  any  truths  about  God  which  may  compel 
him  to  modify  his  present  conception  of  him.  But  so  far  as  it  can  be 
ascertained  in  the  extant  works  of  James,  it  is  quite  evident  that  he  has 
not  worked  out  the  problem  of  God's  causal  relation  to  the  world. 

But  a  question  is  whether  we  can  ignore  this  problem  altogether,  as 
does  James.  It  is  indeed  a  difficult  problem  to  ascertain  the  ontological 
relation  of  God  to  the  world.  There  are  astonishingly  many  facts  in  the 
processes  of  nature  and  human  history  which  we  do  not  wish  to  attribute 
to  God.  Must  we,  then,  give  up  the  task  of  construing  God's  relation 
to  the  world?  It  seems  that  in  the  interest  of  practical  religion  we  need 
to  say  something  here.  This  leads  to  the  further  inquiry:  Can  such  a 
finite  God  as  necessitated  by  the  evolutionary  theory  control  the  world? 
It  does  not  appear  that  God  needs  to  be  infinite  to  sustain  the  world. 
The  world  is  admitted  to  be  finite — it  is  changing  and  growing  toward 
perfection.     So  a  finite  God  could  be  causally  related  to  a  finite  world. 

At  any  rate  the  religious  man  has  his  knowledge-interest  as  well  as 
his  practical  interests,  and  so  we  must  seek  to  satisfy  the  cognitive  side 
of  his  religion.  And  this  cognitive  interest  of  religion  is  met  by  the  view 
that  the  world  in  some  way  is  dependent  on  God  for  its  existence  and 
continuance,  and  that,  as  result  of  our  cooperative  activity  with  him, 
God  will  bring  it  to  a  successful  consummation  in  an  indefinitely  distant 
future.  Such  a  view  of  God's  relation  to  the  world  is  consonant  with  the 
empirical  position  of  James  which  seeks  to  satisfy  the  interests  of  religion. 
But  his  extreme  anti-intellectualism  has  led  him  to  ignore  the  cognitive 
interest  of  the  religious  man.^^^ 

We  may  conclude  our  criticism  of  James  with  the  observation  that 
while  his  solution  of  the  problems  is  most  in  accord  with  the  essential 
elements  of  the  evolutionary  theory,  yet  it  is  open  to  two  objections: 
first,  his  point  of  view  with  reference  to  religion  is  individualistic  and  so 
disregards  the  social  elements  of  religion  which  constitute  a  fruitful 
source  for  determining  the  content  of  religion;  and,  secondly,  he  does 
not  give  a  full  recognition  to  the  intellectual  elements  of  religion  and  so 
he  fails  to  satisfy  the  cognitive  interest. 

"^  Pragmatism,  p.  109. 

2'^  For  critical  exposition  of  James'  philosoph}'-,  see  Perry,  op.  cit.,  pp.  349-378; 
and  for  a  criticism  of  James'  philosophy  of  religion,  Boutroux,  Science  and  Religion^ 
Eng.  tr.,  pp.  355  ff. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  79 

This  brings  us  to  the  close  of  our  exposition  and  criticism  of  t)^ical 
recent  philosophies  of  religion.  There  remains  the  task  of  stating  the 
results  and  implications  of  the  above  discussion.  This  will  form  the 
subject-matter  of  the  third  and  concluding  part. 


80  BEARING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 


PART  THREE 

Statement  of  the  Results  and  Implications  of  the  Foregoing 

Discussion 

So  far  our  effort  has  been  to  set  forth  critically  the  problems  due  to 
the  attempt  to  bring  the  modern  doctrine  of  evolution  into  relation  with 
the  traditional  conception  of  God,  and  the  solutions  of  these  problems  in 
typical  recent  philosophies  of  religion.  The  purpose  of  the  concluding 
part  of  our  investigation  will  be  to  summarize  the  results  and  to  call 
attention  to  certain  implications. 

In  our  survey  of  the  situation  in  the  first  part  of  our  work,  we  saw 
that,  since  the  evolutionary  theory  stands  for  an  empirical  method  and  a 
changing,  growing,  and  non-miraculous  view  of  the  organic  world, 
exempting  no  living  reality  from  the  process  of  evolution,  while  the 
traditional  theology  adheres  to  its  a  priori  revelation-method  and  its 
conception  of  God  as  the  transcendent,  supernatural,  sovereign  person- 
ality and  as  the  infinite  and  absolute  being,  there  arose  many  critical 
problems,  especially,  in  regard  to  the  theological  method  of  formulating 
the  conception  of  God  and  the  conception  of  his  nature.  A  full  recog- 
nition of  these  problems  is  essential  to  the  constructian  of  a  modern 
doctrine  of  God.  The  evolutionary  point  of  view  has  come  to  be  so 
pervasive  and  dominating  in  modern  methods  of  investigation  and  ways 
of  thinking  that  we  can  no  longer  be  content  with  the  uncritical  adjust- 
ments of  the  traditional  conception  of  God  with  the  theory  of  evolution 
which  have  marked  the  apologetic  theologies  of  the  past  generation.^ 
In  view  of  this  fact,  the  theologians  must  either  abandon  the  logic 
underlying  the  evolutionary  theory,  or  accept  it  in  a  thoroughgoing 
fashion  and  deal  with  the  problems  of  theology  from  its  standpoint. 
Realizing  the  futility  of  the  former  alternative,  we  feel  forced  to  deal 
with  the  theory  in  earnest  and  to  consider  the  work  of  theology  from  its 
point  of  view. 

In  assuming  this  attitude  toward  the  evolutionary  theory,  we  find 
two  central  problems,  namely,  that  of  method  and  that  of  the  conception 
of  the  nature  of  God.  The  fundamental  issues  involved,  then,  are  these: 
First,  shall  the  a  priori  dogmatic  method  of  traditional  theology  based 
on  an  external  authority  continue  to  be  used?  or  shall  we  adopt  an 
empirical  procedure  in  the  formulation  of  our  conception  of  God?     Sec- 

^  Such,  e.  g.,  are  Drummond,  Natural  Law  in  the  Spiritual  World,  and  Gr  ffith- 
Jones,  op.  cit. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  81 

ondly,  can  the  traditional  conception  of  God  as  the  transcendent,  com- 
plete, and  perfect  being  be  retained?  or  must  we  conceive  of  him  as 
dynamically  immanent  in  the  processes  of  evolution,  hence  a  changing, 
grov^ing,  finite  being?  To  accept  the  fonner  alternatives  of  these  ques- 
tions means  to  possess  a  system  of  finality  and  of  absolutism  in  matters  of 
religion  and  ethics.  But  to  take  the  position  of  the  latter  alternatives 
signifies  that  there  is  no  finality  anywhere,  either  in  the  world  at  large 
or  more  specifically  in  the  field  of  religion  and  ethics.  These  issues  are 
indeed  of  far-reaching  significance.^  With  this  recognition,  then,  of  the 
problems  and  of  the  issues  involved  in  them,  we  now  pass  to  a  specific 
consideration  of  the  results  and  implications  of  our  previous  discussion. 

1.    The  Problem  of  Method. 

Reference  has  repeatedly  been  made,  in  the  course  of  our  study,  to  the 
fact  that  the  evolutionary  theory  demands  a  new  method  in  dealing 
with  the  doctrine  of  God  as  well  as  other  reUgious  doctrines.  This  new 
method  may  be  stated  briefly  as  an  investigation  and  formulation  of  our 
conception  of  God  on  the  basis  of  knowledge  derived  in  and  through 
the  actual  reUgious  experiences  of  individuals  and  peoples.  In  this 
method  there  is  no  reliance  on  any  external  authority;  material  and  cri- 
terion are  both  found  in  the  experiences  of  religious  people.  To  this 
experiential  method  demanded  by  the  evolutionary  theory,  the  deduc- 
tive method  of  traditional  theology  founded  on  an  infallible,  supernatural 
revelation  is  diametrically  opposed. 

The  result  of  our  study  respecting  the  methodology  of  the  men  whom 
we  have  studied  may  be  siunmed  up  as  follows: 

Royce,  whose  method  is  fundamentally  based  on  an  Absolute  Experi- 
ence or  Thought,  or  on  an  All-inclusive  Insight,  which  he  assumes  a 
priori,  nevertheless  gives  a  large  space  to  the  examination  of  the  facts  of 
changing,  growing,  temporal  social  experience  as  a  means  of  arriving 
at  his  metaphysical  conclusions.^  He  is  fully  aware  of  the  movements  of 
empiricism,  especially  since  the  days  of  Kant,  and  so  cannot  ignore 
inductive  investigation  in  matters  of  philosophy  and  religion.  Thus 
he  confesses:  ''Whatever  may  be  the  rationalistic  bias  or  tradition  of 
any  of  us,  we  are  all  more  or  less  empiricists,  and  we  are  so  to  a  degree 
that  was  never  characteristic  of  the  pre-Kantian  rationalists.  What- 
ever may  be  our  interest  in  theory  or  in  the  Absolute,  we  are  aU 
accustomed  to  lay  stress  upon  practical  considerations  as  having  a 

2  See  Moore,  Pragmatism  and  Its  Critics,  pp.  21  f. 

3  This,  as  we  noted,  is  particularly  true  of  his  recent  works,  e.  g.,  The  Sources  of 
Religiaus  Insight,  and  The  Problem  of  Christianity. 


82  BEARING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

fundamental,  even  if  not  the  most  fundamental,  importance  for  philoso- 
phy; and  so  in  a  general,  and  I  admit,  in  a  very  loose  sense  of  the  term, 
we  are  all  alike  more  or  less  pragma tists."'*  In  a  very  marked  degree, 
the  same  regard  for  empiricism  characterizes  Eucken.  He  has  given  up 
the  power  of  thought  relied  upon  by  intellectualistic  systems  of  philoso- 
phy, for  he  finds  it  incapable  of  giving  us  the  true  insight  into  the  problem 
of  human  life.  For  him  the  contradictions  in  life  cannot  be  so  easily 
solved  as  they  are  in  such  a  philosophy  as  immanent  idealism.  Eucken 
indeed,  affirms  as  the  basis  of  his  philosophy  an  independent  spiritual 
life,  which  is  underivable  in  and  through  the  evolutionary  experiences  of 
man.  Philosophically  he  undertakes  to  view  the  facts  of  human  experi- 
ence from  the  standpoint  of  such  a  spiritual  life.  But  we  find  that,  in 
reality,  he  is  constantly  dealing  with  the  actual  experiences  of  the  life- 
process  in  its  struggles,  conflicts,  oppositions,  tasks.  In  Bowne  we  see 
distinctly  two  trends  in  his  method.  From  the  standpoint  of  his  meta- 
physics, he  relies  upon  the  capacity  of  thought  for  discovering  the 
nature  of  reality;  and  yet  he  fully  admits  that  we  must  depend  upon 
experience  to  furnish  the  data  for  thought.^  From  the  point  of  view  of 
his  religion,  great  stress  is  laid  upon  the  actual  experiences  of  life  to 
solve  the  problem  of  God  and  other  problems  of  religion.  Here  he 
depends  not  on  the  intellect  but  on  experience  to  come  to  an  under- 
standing of  the  nature  of  God  and  of  other  rehgious  realities.  "The 
understanding  is  only  an  instrument  for  manipulating  the  data  furnished 
by  experience;  and  when  the  experience  is  limited  or  lacking,  there  is 
nothing  to  interpret  and  really  no  problem."^  Thus  Royce,  Eucken, 
and  Bowne  give  much  consideration  to  the  facts  of  empirical  experience 
in  matters,  especially,  of  religion.  Still,  in  spite  of  the  attention  they 
give  to  experience,  their  method  consists  fundamentally  in  viewing  the 
problems  of  religion  and  of  philosophy  from  the  standpoint  of  some 
absolute,  some  final  criterion  which  they  have  a  priori  assumed.  But 
when  we  come  to  James,  we  find  that  he  has  set  aside  all  a  priori  method, 
and  deals  with  the  questions  of  religion  from  the  viewpoint  of  actual 
religious  experience.  For  him  the  content  of  religion  is  not  to  be  assumed, 
but  to  be  obtained  and  verified  in  and  through  concrete  religious  exper- 
ience. Hence  in  him  we  note  a  complete  reliance  on  the  capacity  of  the 
actual  experiences  of  religion  to  determine  its  realities;  thus  he  meets  the 
methodological  demand  of  the  evolutionary  theory.^ 

4  The  Eternal  and  the  Practical,  The  Phil.  Rev.,  XIII,  pp.  113  f.;  cf.  ibid.,  p.  142. 

*  Metaphysics,  p.  5. 

*  Theism,  p.  260. 

^  On  the  methods  of  these  philosophers  of  rehgion,  see  above,  pp.  21  f.,  27  ff. ; 
41f.;48f.;55f.;63f.;74f. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  83 

Briefly,  this  is  the  result  of  our  study  of  the  problem  of  method. 
Even  the  philosophers  of  religion,  Royce,  Eucken,  and  Bowne,  who  are 
concerned  to  relate  the  problems  of  religion  to  a  superempirical  absolute, 
nevertheless  make  so  much  use  of  the  data  of  experience,  that  they  tend 
toward  an  experiential  method.  This  tendency  toward  empirical 
inquiry  finds  full  scope  in  the  inductive  method  of  James. ^  The  trend 
of  contemporary  religious  thought,  so  far  as  these  men  are  representative 
is  thus  in  the  direction  of  empiricism  in  method. 

This  methodological  tendency  means  that  if  theology  is  to  be  in  line 
with  the  inductive,  evolutionary  spirit  of  contemporary  sciences,  it 
cannot  follow  the  method  hitherto  employed.  Traditional  theology  fol- 
lows the  method  of  expounding  and  systematizing  a  given  quantity  of 
supernatural  revelation  located  in  an  infallible  church  or  scripture.^ 
Such  a  procedure  is  becoming  more  and  more  unsatisfactory;  for  the 
investigations  in  biblical  science  are  constantly  bringing  to  light  the 
differences  between  the  content  of  the  biblical  revelation  and  that  of 
modern  religion.^^  A  departure  from  this  method  marks  the  RitschUan 
school,  which  views  religion  from  the  standpoint  of  the  revelation  of  God 
made  in  the  historical  person  of  Jesus. ^^  While  this  method  is  an  advance 
upon  that  of  traditional  theology,  in  that  it  is  more  in  accord  with  the 
results  of  bibUcal  criticism  than  the  latter;  yet  there  is  actually  much 
discrepancy  between  the  religious  consciousness  and  teaching  of  the 
historical  Jesus  and  the  content  of  our  modem  reUgious  experiences  and 
views.  It  thus  becomes  exceedingly  difficult  to  make  the  historical 
Jesus  as  the  complete  and  absolute  norm  of  religion.^  Fully  aware  of 
this  difficulty  of  the  Ritschlian  method,  the  ^' Religions geschichtliche 
Schule'^  attempts  to  view  the  problems  of  reHgion  from  the  standpoint 
of  the  history  of  reUgions.^^  But  while  this  school  does  actually  deal 
with  reHgion  empirically,  there  is  still  the  desire  to  Hnk  reHgious  beUef 

*  Of  course  this  remark  does  not  signify  that  his  method  is  fuUy  satisfactory,  but 
it  means  that  he  has  apphed  the  same  scientific  spirit,  which  characterizes  the  theorie 
of  evolution,  in  his  investigations  of  religion. 

9  See,  e.  g.,  Hodge,  op.  ciL,  I,  pp.  182  ff.;  Shedd,  op.  cit.,  I,  pp.  70  S. 

10  See,  e.  g.,  Piepenbring,  Theology  of  the  Old  Testament;  Weinel,  Biblische  Theologie 
des  Neuen  Testaments,  Tubingen,  1913;  WTiite,  A  History  of  the  Warfare  of  Science 
with  Theology  in  Christendom,  2  vols.,  1896,  II,  Chap.  XX. 

"Herrmann,  Der  Verkehr  des  Christen  mit  Gott,  Berhn,  1903,  esp.  pp.  79  flf.; 
Hamack,  Das  Wesen  des  Christentums,  pp.  33  ff. 

^  See,  e.  g.,  Schweitzer,  The  Quest  of  Historical  Jesus;  Scott,  The  Kingdom  and  the 
Messiah. 

"Troeltsch,  The  Dogmatics  of  the  "ReUgionsgeschichtliche  Schule,"  American 
Journal  of  Theology,  Jan.,  1913. 


84  BEARING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

to  some  superempirical  absolute.  Troeltsch,  for  example,  affirms  a  religi- 
ous a  priori  quite  after  the  transcendental  method  of  Platonism.^'*  The 
above  typical  theological  methods  of  the  present  are  satisfactory  to 
many.  But  an  increasing  number  of  theological  thinkers  who  have  felt 
the  power  of  scientific  investigations,  especially  in  the  field  of  religion, 
can  no  longer  follow  esoteric  methods.  These  men  feel  that  in  order 
to  take  its  place  among  the  sciences  of  our  age  and  to  accomplish  its 
work  for  the  furtherance  of  religious  life,  theology  should  employ  the 
method  demanded  by  the  evolutionary  theory.  In  adopting  such  a 
method  of  experimentation  and  verification,  theology  will  indeed  lose 
its  claim  to  finality  in  content,  but  it  will  find  a  vaster  field  for  its  inves- 
tigation and  gain  scientific  worth  for  what  it  discovers  through  the 
medium  of  the  new  method.^^  Theology,  then,  in  following  the  induc- 
tive method  of  the  evolutionary  theory  will  seek  for  the  sources  of  its 
doctrines  in  the  common  religious  experiences  of  people  as  these  are 
critically  expounded  in  investigations  dealing  particularly  with  the  his- 
tory of  religion  and  the  psychology  of  religious  experience.  Christian 
theology  will,  of  course,  study  its  religious  inheritance  in  the  records 
especially  of  the  Hebrew  and  Christian  peoples,  in  order  to  gain  sug- 
gestive contributions  toward  the  solution  of  its  religious  problems.  Sig- 
nificant personalities,  notably  the  prophets  and  Jesus  and  his  apostles, 
will  constitute  a  specially  valuable  source  of  religious  insight.  But 
while  these  will  form  the  primary  sources  of  religion,  theology  will,  in 
accordance  with  its  empirical  method,  deal  with  contributions  on  matters 
of  religion  coming  from  any  other  worthy  source.  It  is  thus  the  great 
field  of  human  religious  experience,  in  the  largest  sense,  with  which 
theology  would  empirically  deal.^^  In  the  use  of  such  inductive  pro- 
cedure, theology  would  indeed  be  in  accord  with  the  methodological 
point  of  view  of  the  evolutionary  theory;  and  it  would  also  carry  out 
the  implication  of  our  investigation  with  regard  to  the  problem  of 
method  in  its  relation  to  the  formulation  of  our  conception  of  God. 

2.    The  Problem  of  the  Relation  between  Theology  and  Science. 

The  problem  as  to  the  relation  between  theology  and  science  involves 
especially  the  question  of  empiricism  and  metempiricism  in  theory.  The 
evolutionary  theory  based,  as  it  is,  upon  scientific  investigations,  would 

^*  Empiricism  and  Platonism  in  the  Philosophy  of  Religion,  Harvard  Theo.,  Rev.,  V, 
esp.  pp.  419  ff. 

^^  Cf.  Ames,  op.  cit.,  p,  320;  Theology  from  the  Standpoint  of  Functional  Psychol- 
ogy, American  Journal  of  Theology,^,  p.  232. 

^^  Cf.  Johnson,  God  in  Evolution,  Chap.  II,  Concerning  Method. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  85 

necessitate  the  view  that,  since  all  forms  of  existence  are  related  with  one 
another  in  an  organic  whole,  the  physical  and  psychical  realms  are  alike 
open  to  empirical  investigations;  that,  inasmuch  as  we  do  not  know  of 
any  content  of  truth  obtainable  through  metempirical  means,  all  our 
affirmations  concerning  God  and  other  religious  objects  should  be  made 
on  the  basis  of  our  evolutionary  experience;  and  that,  as  our  life  with  all 
its  ideas  and  ideals  is  involved  in  the  process  of  real  evolution,  all  our 
theories  are  not  the  exact  representations  of  objective  truths,  but  are 
practical  means  of  interpreting  and  of  furthering  human  life.  Traditional 
theology,  however,  maintains  that  while  the  natural  realm  is  open  to 
scientific  investigation,  the  supernatural  realm,  where  the  main  facts 
of  religion  are  believed  to  be  located,  is  not  amenable  to  inductive 
experimentation;  that  the  truths  of  religion  are  given  to  us  by  a  super- 
natural God  through  supernatural  means;  and  that,  therefore,  these 
truths  are  infallible  and  absolute.  In  view  of  the  theoretical  antithesis 
involved  in  these  two  systems  of  thought,  there  arises  the  problem  of 
effecting  a  tenable  adjustment  between  them. 

For  the  solution  of  this  problem,  the  philosophers  of  reUgion  whom 
we  have  consulted,  have  given  us  their  contributions.  Royce,  in  accord- 
ance with  his  absolute  idealism,  holds  that  philosophy  has  the  final  word 
on  the  subject  of  reality.  Yet  he  recognizes  the  truths  of  science  as 
inductive  descriptions  of  the  temporal  order.  Moreover,  he  gives  a  high 
value  to  the  deeds  and  events  of  our  temporal  experience.^^  What  he 
opposes  in  science  (natural  science)  is  its  uncritical  affirmation  that  all 
reality  consists  of  physical  elements  and  that  all  forms  of  existence  are 
explicable  in  terms  of  such  elements.  Eucken  likewise  appreciates  the 
place  and  worth  of  science  in  modern  life.  But  he  cannot  tolerate  the 
scientific  naturalism  which  reduces  all  reahty  to  the  plane  of  physical 
mechanism.  With  Bowne,  science  can  freely  concern  itself  with  the 
phenomenal  reality,  while  philosophy  deals  with  ontological  reaHties. 
But  we  note  that  Bowne  bases  many  of  his  religious  affirmations  on  the 
ground  of  experience.  When  we  come  to  James,  we  find  that  he  has 
given  up  all  the  dogmatic  elements  adhered  to  by  the  above  philosophers, 
and  bases  all  his  declarations  on  the  discoveries  of  empirical  inquiry; 
but  he  is  as  fully  antagonistic  as  they  are  to  the  materialistic  contentions 
of  dogmatic  natural  science.  Thus  all  these  philosophers  of  rehgion  hold 
that  the  discoveries  of  natural  science  do  not  constitute  the  whole  of 
reaUty;  accordingly,  theological  or  religious  affirmations  must  be  given 

"  See,  e.  g.,  The  Reality  of  the  Temporal,  International  Journal  of  Ethics,  XX, 
pp.  269  ff. 


86  BEARING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

their  due  validity.  Royce,  Eucken,  and  Bowne,  who  claim  finality  for 
their  systems,  make  much  of  their  statements  grounded  on  the  facts  of 
experience,  while  James  abandons  all  dogmatic  elements  and  treats  all 
theories  as  hypotheses  liable  to  modification  and  revision  in  the  course 
of  changing  human  experience.^^  James  thus  considers  the  idea  of  God 
also  as  a  practical  hypothesis  of  religion.^^  The  empirical  elements 
traceable  in  Royce,  Eucken,  and  Bowne  thus  find  full  recognition  in 
James,  and  are  made  the  basis  of  his  philosophy  of  religion  as  well  as  of 
science.^^ 

Such,  in  brief,  is  the  tendency  of  thought  among  these  philosophers 
of  religion  on  the  relation  between  theology  and  science.  Science  has 
its  place  to  fill  in  the  work  of  humanity,  but  it  must  give  up  its  claim 
to  explain  all  realities  in  terms  of  physical  elements;  while  theology  should 
relinquish  its  claim  to  set  forth  absolute  truth.  Both  are  called  upon 
to  face  the  facts  of  life  and  of  existence  in  a  thoroughly  empirical  fashion, 
and  to  consider  themselves  as  means  of  furthering  the  on-going  evolution 
of  life.  This  appears  to  be  the  implication  of  the  solutions  given  by  our 
religious  philosophers  to  the  problem  of  the  relation  of  theology  and 
science. 

This  implication  as  to  the  relation  between  theology  and  science  calls 
for  a  brief  comment.  The  theories  of  evolution  which  we  have  studied 
are  characterized  by  a  thoroughgoing  empiricism.  Lamarck  indicates 
that  he  has  reached  his  conclusions  as  result  of  observation  ;2^  Darwin 
states  that  his  theory  of  natural  selection,  formulated  after  years  of  close 
study,  does  not  exclude  other  means  of  modification  of  species;^  Bergson, 
too,  with  his  doctrine  of  a  universal  change  does  not  claim  finality  for  his 
system.^  This  undogmatic  attitude  of  the  evolutionists  is  characteristic 
of  contemporary  scientists.  While  Haeckel  maintains  the  view  that 
"  all  the  previous  boundaries  of  natural  science  have  now  fallen  (in  conse- 
sequence  of  the  progress  of  science);  its  domain  has  become  extended 
thereby  over  the  whole  realm  of  man's  intellectual  life.  Nature  is  every- 
thing, and  therefore  all  true  science  is  also  at  bottom  'natural  science'  ";^ 

^^The  Will  to  Believe,  Preface,  pp.  vii,  f.;  Essays  in  Radical  Empiricism. 
^3  The  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience,  pp.  506  f.,  517  f. 

20  For  the  views  of  these  men  on  the  relation  between  theology  and  science,  see 
above,  pp.  29  f.;  42  f.;  56  ff.;  73  f.;  and  for  a  criticism  of  science,  cf.  Perry,  op.  cit., 
Chap.  V,  Religion  and  the  Limits  of  Science. 

21  Packard,  op.  cit.,  p.  323. 

22  The  Origin  of  Species,  cf .  The  Descent  of  Man,  pp.  702  f . 

23  Creative  Evolution,  pp.  44  flf.,  265  ff. 

24  The  Boundaries  of  Natural  Science,  The  Open  Court,  Feb.  1914,  p.  73,  cf.  p.  69  f. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  87 

yet  such  an  aflBrmation  is  not  made  by  the  most  critically  exact  of  scien- 
tists. Pearson,  for  example,  points  out  the  incompleteness  of  science 
and  its  concepts  or  laws  as  mental  shorthand  useful  to  the  work  of  man: 
"Although  science  claims  the  whole  universe  as  its  field,  it  must  not  be 
supposed  that  it  has  reached,  or  ever  can  reach,  complete  knowledge  in 
every  department.  Far  from  this  it  confesses  that  its  ignorance  is  more 
widely  extended  than  its  knowledge.  .  .  .  We  are  thus  to  understand 
by  a  law  in  science,  i.  e.,  by  a  'law  of  nature,'  a  resume  in  mental  short- 
hand, which  replaces  for  us  a  lengthy  description  of  the  sequences  among 
our  sense-impressions.  Law  in  the  scientific  sense  is  thus  essentially  a 
product  of  the  human  mind  and  has  no  meaning  apart  from  man."^^ 
Ostwald,  in  a  similar  tone,  says:  ''The  laws  of  nature  do  not  decree  what 
shall  happen,  but  inform  us  what  has  happened  and  what  is  wont  to  hap- 
pen. ...  We  must  not  say,  .  .  .,  that  because  we  have  been  able  so 
far  to  explain  all  experiences  by  natural  laws  it  will  be  so  in  the  future 
likewise.  For  we  are  far  from  being  able  to  explain  all  experiences.  In 
fact,  it  is  only  a  very  small  part  that  we  have  begim  to  investigate.  "^^ 
Poincare,  on  the  matter  of  scientific  law,  writes  thus:  "If  we  look  at  any 
particular  law,  we  may  be  certain  in  advance  that  it  can  only  be  approxi- 
mate. ...  No  particular  law  will  ever  be  more  than  approximate  and 
probable.  Scientists  have  never  failed  to  recognize  this  truth;  only 
they  beheve,  right  or  wrong,  that  every  law  may  be  replaced  by  another 
closer  and  more  probable,  that  this  new  law  will  itself  be  only  provisional, 
but  that  the  same  movement  can  continue  indefinitely,  so  that  science 
in  progressing  will  possess  laws  more  and  more  probable,  that  the  approxi- 
mation will  end  by  differing  as  Uttle  as  you  choose  from  exactitude  and 
the  probabiHty  from  certitude. "^^  Such  is,  in  short,  the  thoroughly 
empirical  attitude  of  our  foremost  scientists  in  regard  to  the  work  of 
science. 

But  what  attitude  do  we  find  in  the  case  of  theologians?  In  con- 
trast to  the  empiricism  of  the  evolutionary  theory  and  of  contemporary 
science,  most  of  our  theologies  are  marked  by  some  dogmatic  absolutism. 
Orthodoxy  maintains  that  it  has  the  final  truths  m  its  divinely  given 
scripture,^^  which  are  beyond  the  ken  of  science.  The  RitschUan  school 
conceives  of  reaUty  under  two  categories:  the  existential-judgments  and 

^  The  Gramma  of  Science,  pp.  25,  86  f . 
2«  Natural  Philosophy,  pp.  28,  31. 
2'  The  Foundations  of  Science,  pp.  340,  341. 

28  See,  e.  g.,  Hodge,  op.  ciL,  I,  pp.  151  ff.,  364;  Shedd,  op.  cit.,  I,  pp.  70  ff.;  Strong, 
op.  cit.,  I,  pp.  145  ff. 


88  BEARING  or  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

value-judgments.  Science  deals  with  the  former,  while  theology  is  con- 
cerned with  the  latter;  the  two  are  independent  of  each  other.  "The 
evangehcal  faith,"  says  Herrmann,  ''because  it  ought  to  be  an  indepen- 
dent possession  of  the  moral  personality,  must  remain  unentangled  with 
the  present-day  development  of  free  natural  science."  ^^  For  this  school, 
by  thus  dividing  the  field  of  knowledge  and  of  faith,  the  content  of 
revelation  given  in  the  personality  of  the  historical  Jesus  is  theoretically 
unaffected  by  historical  criticism.^^  The  Positive  theologians  contend 
that  in  Jesus  Christ  the  absolute  truths  of  religion  are  found.^^  The 
"  Religions geschichichtliche  Schule^'  as  represented  by  Troeltsch  cannot  be 
satisfied  with  what  we  find  in  experience.  He  falls  back  on  the  position 
of  Platonic  philosophy .^^  Thus  theologians  in  one  way  or  another  with 
their  adherence  to  some  absolute  element  in  their  systems  contend  for 
the  immunity  of  their  theological  doctrines  from  the  encroachment  of 
science;  for  them  the  findings  of  empirical  study  cannot  form  the  founda- 
tion for  their  theological  doctrines.  These  must  be  grounded  on  some 
a  priori  principle  underivable  in  and  through  human  experience. 

None  of  the  positions,  however,  of  the  above  theologians  would 
seem  to  be  in  agreement  with  the  implication  of  the  tendency  of  thought 
manifested  by  our  religious  philosophers  on  the  question  of  the  relation 
of  theology  and  science.  Of  these  philosophers,  James  has  particularly 
brought  out,  in  accordance  with  his  empiricism,  the  functional  value  of 
our  scientific  and  theological  concepts;  for  him,  they  are  the  practical 
means  of  adjusting  ourselves  to  the  environing  realities  for  the  purpose  of 
developing  human  life.  This  functional  significance  of  our  concepts  is 
recognized,  as  we  have  seen,  by  at  least  a  few  of  our  contemporary 
scientists.  The  theologians,  in  the  main,  have  not  yet  come  to  take 
such  a  view  of  their  doctrines;  the  theological  concepts,  according  to  them, 
are  more  or  less  exact  representations  of  objective  realities.  It  is  quite 
manifest,  as  a  result  of  our  study,  that  the  best  way,  in  so  far  as  our 
present  age  of  culture  and  civilization  is  concerned,  is  to  take  the  hints 
given  by  the  philosophers  of  religion  and  the  men  of  science  whom  we 
have  consulted  respecting  the  relation  between  theology  and  science, 

29  Die  Religion,  etc.,  Preface,  p.  iv,  quoted  by  Simpson,  The  Spiritual  Interpreta- 
tion of  Nature,  p.  4. 

'°  See  Garvie,  The  Ritschlian  Theology,  1899;  BoutroiLx,  Science  et  Religion,  Part 
II,  Chap.  I. 

31  See  Seeberg,  op.  cit.,  cf.  Hodge,  The  Finality  of  the  Christian  Rehgion,  Princeton 
Biblical  and  Theological  Studies,  pp.  453  ff.;  Brown,  op.  cit.,  pp.  74  S. 

32  Empiricism  and  Platonism  in  the  Philosophy  of  ReUgion,  Harvard  Theo.  Rev.,  V, 
p.  420  ff. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  89 

and  conceive  of  the  doctrines  t>oth  of  science  and  of  theology  as  working 
hypotheses,  which  we  acquire  through  the  process  of  experimentation, 
in  order  to  achieve  the  higher  values  of  life.^  In  so  conceiving  the 
function  of  theology  and  of  science  in  relation  to  the  interests  of  human 
life,  there  is  suggested  a  tenable  relation  between  them,  namely,  the 
relation  of  cooperative  activity  in  the  interest  of  promoting  the  develop- 
ment of  man  in  his  struggle  for  existence.  The  whole  realm  of  existence 
will  be  open  to  science  for  investigation,  as  it  is  held,  for  example,  by 
Pearson;**  so  that  it  may  go  on  with  its  work  of  observation,  description, 
classification,  explanation  as  to  the  processes  of  nature,  human  society, 
and  of  our  psychological  phenomena  in  order  to  have  control  over  them 
in  the  behalf  of  man;  while  theology  is  to  proceed  with  its  task,  aided  by 
the  results  of  scientific  investigations  in  various  fields,  of  interpreting 
particularly  religious  phenomena  and  of  formulating  concepts,  doctrines, 
hypotheses  of  the  objects  of  reUgion  which  will  best  further,  in  a  given 
age,  its  ideal  ends.  Such  a  theory  seems  to  be  the  impUcation  of  the 
trend  of  the  solutions  offered  by  our  philosophers  on  the  relation  of 
theology  and  science  and  also  to  be  the  bearing  of  the  evolutionary 
theory,  especially,  on  the  formulation  of  our  conception  of  God. 

3.  The  Problem  of  God  as  the  Transcendent,  Supernatural  Person- 
ality. 

The  problems  which  we  have  just  been  discussing  relate,  in  a  special 
manner,  to  the  question  of  empiricism  in  method  and  in  theory  with 
regard  to  the  conception  of  God.  The  problem  before  us  and  those  that 
are  to  follow  concern  our  conception  of  the  nature  of  God  and  of  his 
relation  to  the  world.  To  take  up  the  immediate  problem,  we  have 
noted  that  the  evolutionary  theory  stands  for  a  view  of  realities  as 
organically  related  into  a  whole;  it,  moreover,  knows  no  other  world,  so 
far  as  our  experience  shows,  than  this  changing,  evolving  world  whose 
evolutionary  process  is  effected  by  its  immanent  forces.  God,  then, 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  theory,  must  be  organically  related  with  this 
world.  Traditional  theology,  on  the  other  hand,  holds  that  God  does 
not  essentially  belong  to  this  world;  but. that  he  manifests  his  relation 
to  it  by  means  of  specific  supernatural  acts.  So  there  emerges  the 
problem  of  God  as  the  transcendent,  supernatural  personaHty. 

^  See  Ames,  Theology  from  the  Standpoint  of  Functional  Psychology,  American 
Journal  of  Theology,  X,  pp.  219-232,  Tiie  Psychology  of  Religious  Experience,  Chap.  XVI, 
Ideas  and  Religious  Experience;  I.  King,  op.  cit.,  Chap.  XIII,  Religious  Valuation  and 
Supernaturalism. 

^  Op.  cit.,  p.  24. 


90  BEARING  or  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

Respecting  this  problem  we  have  found  this  result.  Royce  has  com- 
pletely abandoned  the  Kantian  things-in-themselves,  and  has  conceived 
of  God  in  terms  of  immanent  idealism.  For  him,  there  is  no  other 
world  than  the  world  of  thought  and  will.  God  is  organically  bound  up 
with  such  a  world;  he  is  its  very  life  and  substance.  Eucken  cannot 
endorse  the  view  of  God  as  belonging  to  a  supernatural  world  and  as 
coming  to  us  by  means  of  miraculous  donation.  God  is  considered  by 
him  as  the  very  basis  of  all  existence,  in  spite  of  the  appearances  to  the 
contrary.  God,  according  to  Bowne,  is  the  omnipresent  ground  of  all 
things;  no  finite  being  exists  apart  from  the  immanent  activity  of  such  a 
God.  God,  in  the  thought  of  James,  is  intimately  concerned  with  us  in 
our  struggles  for  the  attainment  of  higher  and  higher  forms  of  hfe. 
All  these  philosophers  of  rehgion  attribute  the  notion  of  personality,  in 
varying  degrees,  to  God,  yet  they  do  not  conceive  of  him  in  terms  of  such 
a  rigid  separation  from  the  world  as  is  held  by  traditional  theology; 
God,  for  them,  is  either  the  all-inclusive  being  of  the  universe  (Royce), 
or  the  independent  basis  and  the  ground  of  the  world  (Eucken  and 
Bowne),  or  one  of  the  principal  realities  of  the  world  (James);  but  in 
every  case,  God  is  closely  and  organically  related  with  the  world.^*^  The 
view  of  God,  then,  as  immanently  and  dynamically  related  with  the 
world  is  suggested  as  the  result  of  our  study  of  the  solutions  given  by 
typical  recent  philosophies  of  religion  to  the  problem  of  God  as  the 
transcendent,  supernatural  personality.^ 

The  significance  of  this  result  of  our  investigation  for  theology, 
briefly  stated,  is  this:  that,  to  be  in  line  with  and  represent  helpfully 
the  evolutionary  and  immanent  view  of  the  world,  theology  has  to 
abandon  its  traditional  heritage  of  conceiving  God  in  terms  of  dualistic 
supernaturalism  and  to  think  of  him  as  immanently  active  in  the  world 
of  nature  and  of  man.  But  the  ruling  theologies  of  our  day  decline  to 
carry  out  this  implication;  they  refuse  to  conceive  of  God  in  terms  of 
dynamic  immanence;  they  are  not  wholly  willing  to  surrender  the  super- 
natural transcendence  of  God  in  the  traditional  sense.  The  underlying 
reason  of  their  disincUnation  to  view  God  in  terms  of  dynamic  relation 
with  the  world  is  twofold:  they  have  not,  on  the  one  hand,  acquired 
scientific  confidence  in  the  normal  evolutionary  activities  of  the  imma- 
nent forces  in  the  cosmos;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  they  desire  to  preserve 

36  See  above,  pp.  25  f.;  39  fiF.,  44;  49  ff.,  57  flf.;  69  ff.,  74. 

^  By  this  statement  it  is  not  intended  to  convey  the  idea  that  they  identify  God 
pantheistically  with  the  world.  Even  with  Royce,  God  and  the  world  are  not,  empiri- 
cally at  least,  the  same. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  91 

the  supernatural  character  of  their  religion.  This  attitude  is  expressed 
by  orthodoxy  in  its  afl&rmation  of  the  scripture  as  the  supernatural 
revelation  of  God,  of  the  incarnation  of  Jesus  as  the  miraculous  interven- 
tion in  the  course  of  history,  of  salvation  as  the  supernatural  act  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  and  of  the  like.^^  In  fact,  the  whole  system  of  orthodoxy 
is  based  upon  the  specific  supernatural  acts  of  God  interposed  in  the 
course  of  nature  and  of  human  history. 

The  conception  of  God  as  the  transcendent,  supernatural  personality 
is  thus  connected  with  the  question  of  miracles.  Miracles  in  the  sense 
of  acts  performed  by  God  in  contradistinction  to  the  known  order  of 
nature  and  of  human  history  are  essential  to  traditional  theology .^^  One 
of  the  strongest  orthodox  expressions  on  the  necessity  of  the  supernatural 
principle  in  Christianity  is  made  by  W.  B.  Greene.  He  maintains  that 
the  Christian  religion  stands  or  falls  with  the  reality  of  God  as  the 
Supernatural,  i.  e.,  absolutely  distinct  from  the  world.  /  "Christianity 
insists  on  nothing  so  strongly  as  on  this,"  he  writes,  "that  it  is  not  of 
this  world  and  so  natural,  but  is  directly  of  the  sole  because  absolute 
God  and  thus  supernatural."^^  In  a  similar  manner,  C.  W.  Hodge  con- 
tends that  the  finality  of  the  Christian  religion  depends  on  its  superna- 
turally  communicated  revelation  of  truth  from  an  extramundane  God.'*" 
In  these  recent  expressions  of  these  men,  there  is  the  sharply  defined 
dualism  of  the  natural  and  the  supernatural,  which  is  characteristic  of  the 
older  theologians  above  referred  to.  According  to  such  a  mode  of  thought 
God  must  intervene  in  the  course  of  the  world  to  make  himself  known 
to  us  and  furnish  us  with  his  salvation.  This  supernaturalism  is  main- 
tained by  the  Ritschlian  school. ^^  Other  theologians  emphasize  the 
element  of  the  supernatural  in  religion  to  a  greater  or  less  degree.'*^ 

With  all  the  emphasis  thus  put  upon  the  supernatural  character  of 
God  by  these  theologians,  it  is  interesting  to  note,  especially  in  the 
writings  of  the  Ritschlians  and  other  liberal  theologians,  the  fact  that 

"  See  Wilhelm  and  Scannell,  op.  cit.,  vols.  I  and  II;  Hodge,  op.  cit.,  I,  pp.  151  ff., 
II,  pp.  378  ff.,  675  flf.;  Shedd,  op.  cit.,  I,  pp.  61  ff.,  II,  pp.  261  ff.,  353  ff.;  Strong,  op. 
cit.,  I,  pp.  Ill  ff.,  II,  pp.  673  ff.,  Ill,  pp.  777  ff. 

38 Hodge,  op.  cit.,  I,  pp.  617  ff.;  Shedd,  op.  cit.,  I,  pp.  533  ff.;  Strong,  op.  cit.,  II, 
pp.  431  ff. 

3"  The  Supernatural,  Princeton  Biblical  and  Theological  Studies,  p.  145,  cf .  pp.  143  ff. 

*°  See  ibid..  The  Finality  of  the  Christian  ReUgion,  esp.  pp.  452  ff. 

"  See,  e.  g.,  Herrmann,  op.  cit.,  Kapitel  II;  Hamack,  op.  cit.,  p.  19;  Wendland, 
Miracles  and  Christianity,  Eng.  tr.,  1911,  esp.  pp.  1,  3,  125,  158,  281,  etc. 

«See,  e.  g.,  Clark,  op.  cit.,  pp.  133  f.;  Brown,  op.  cit.,  pp.  229  ff.;  H.  C.  King, 
op.  cit.,  pp.  96  ff. 


92  BEARING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

genuine  moral  and  religious  elements  in  life  are  really  considered  by  them 
as  the  fundamental  constituents  of  religion.  For  the  Ritschlians,  it  is 
not  the  miraculous  birth  or  deeds  of  Jesus  but  his  wonderful  moral 
religious  personahty  which  makes  him  unique  among  the  sons  of  men; 
and  the  great  objective  of  the  Christian  life  is  not  a  pietistic  contempla- 
tion of  the  gifts  of  God  but  the  establishment  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.'*^ 
So  we  may  say  that  there  is,  in  contemporary  theologies,  a  tendency 
toward  the  elimination  of  the  supernatural  aspects  of  God,  so  as  to  con- 
ceive of  him  as  genuinely  related  to  our  moral  religious  experiences. 
A  suggestive  expression  of  this  tendency  is  given  by  G.  A.  Gordon  in  his 
hook,  Religion  and  Miracles.  The  central  thought  of  his  work  is  that 
religion  does  not  stand  or  fall  with  the  fate  of  miracle.  He  holds  that 
miracles  are  logical  possibilities  but  natural  improbabilities.  And  he 
confesses  that,  with  his  view  of  God  as  immanent  in  the  world,  miracle 
has  no  part  in  his  working  philosophy  of  Ufe.^  Thus  to  conceive  of  God 
in  terms  of  dynamic  immanence  and  to  have  confidence  in  his  normal 
activities  in  the  world  would  indeed  be  in  accord  with  the  evolutionary 
theory  which  eliminates  the  miraculous  from  the  organic  realm,'*^  and 
would  be  working  out  the  impUcation  of  the  solutions  of  the  problem  of 
God  as  the  transcendent,  supernatural  personality  offered  by  our  reli- 
gious philosophers  in  the  work  of  theology  .^^  This  conception  of  God  in 
terms  of  organic  relation  with  the  world  is  intimately  connected  with  the 
next  problem  to  be  considered,  namely, 

4.    The  Problem  of  God  as  the  Absolute  Being. 

This  is  the  most  critical  problem  in  our  investigation.  For  it  imme- 
diately opens  up  the  question  of  absoluteness  and  finality  versus  finitude 
and  relativity  in  matters  of  ethics  and  religion.  The  evolutionary 
theory  stands  for  the  relative  and  finite  view  of  reality.  Such  a  view  of 
the  world  is  evident  in  its  conception  of  all  the  forms  of  life  as  involved 
in  the  process  of  change  and  of  growth.  God,  from  this  evolutionary 
point  of  view  of  organic  reality,  is  to  be  conceived  of  in  terms  of  change 
and  growth,  the  essential  characteristics  of  the  living  world  with  which 
he  is  vitally  related.    Traditional  theology,  on  the  contrary,  contends 

^'  Ritschl,  Doctrine  of  Reconciliation  and  Justification,  Eng.  tr.,  Chap.  IV,  The 
Doctrine  of  God;  Herrmann,  op.  cit.,  Kapitel  III;  Harnack,  op.  cit.,  pp.  34  ff.;  cf. 
Clark,  op.  cit.,  H.  C.  King,  op.  cit.,  Chaps.  XI  f.;  Brown,  op.  cit.,  pp.  326  ff.,  377  ff., 
182  ff. 

«  See  op.  cit.,  pp.  7,  Z3,  82,  130,  165  ff. 

^  Weismann,  op.  cit.,  I,  p.  6;  cf.  Pfleiderer,  Evolution  and  Theology,  p.  9. 

**  For  a  very  suggestive  contribution  on  this  subject,  see  G.  B.  Smith,  Social 
Idealism  and  the  Changing  Theology,  esp.  Chap.  V. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  93 

for  the  system  of  absoluteness  and  finality  in  religion  and  ethics.  This 
contention  of  traditional  theology  is  a  direct  consequence  of  its  concep- 
tion of  God  as  the  eternally  complete  and  perfect  being  of  the  universe; 
he  is,  as  such,  wholly  above  time  and  history  which  mark  our  world. 

The  result  of  our  inquiry  as  to  the  solutions  of  this  problem  in  recent 
philosophies  of  religion  is  as  follows.  The  God  of  Royce,  from  the 
standpoint  of  his  absolute  idealism,  is  the  all-inclusive  absolute  being  of 
the  universe,  free  from  the  temporary  aspects  of  our  experience.  Yet  we 
have  found  that  Royce  attributes  to  his  God  such  characteristics  of  our 
evolutionary  experience  as  sujffering,  striving,  satisfaction.  Hence  the 
God  of  Royce,  viewed  at  least  from  our  finite  point  of  view,  is  involved 
in  the  process  of  change  and  of  growth,  so  is  a  finite  being;  while  he  is 
the  absolute  being,  when  viewed  from  an  eternal  point  of  view.'*^  God, 
for  Eucken,  is  the  absolute  spiritual  Ufe,  the  independent  basis  of  all 
temporal  order.  But  the  real  interest,  from  the  standpoint  of  his  actual 
experience,  is  to  view  God  in  terms  of  our  conflict,  struggle,  and  activity. 
Thus  the  God  of  Eucken  would  be  involved  in  the  evolutionary  features  of 
human  experience.  God,  in  the  thought  of  Bowne,  is  the  omnipresent 
ontological  ground  of  the  world,  absolutely  free  from  its  evolutionary 
characteristics.  But  the  very  fact  that  Bowne  has  repudiated  the  old 
static  notion  of  reality,  that  he  has  endeavored  to  establish  the  dis- 
tinct existence  of  finite  spirits  over  against  the  infinite,  and  that  he  has 
sought  to  conceive  of  God  in  terms  of  actual  relation  with  our  moral  and 
religious  experiences,  leads  logically  to  the  conception  of  God  as  a 
changing,  growing,  finite  being.  In  James  we  note  no  effort  to  retain  the 
absolutistic  conception  of  God,  which  the  above  philosophers  theoreti- 
cally attempt  to  maintain.  James,  on  the  contrary,  finds  the  very 
essence  of  life  in  its  experiences  of  change,  growth,  risks,  successes. 
Hence  he  conceives  of  God  in  terms  of  these  characteristics  of  our  evo- 
lutionary experience.  Thus  we  observe  that  the  evolutionary  aspects 
in  the  theological  thoughts  of  Royce,  Eucken,  and  Bowne,  which  appear 
in  spite  of  their  conceptions  of  God  under  the  category  of  some  absolute, 
are  made  the  fundamental  characteristics  of  God  in  the  pragmatic 
religion  of  James. ^^  We  may,  thus,  say  that  the  tendency  of  thought  in 
these  philosophies  of  religion  is  to  conceive  of  God  in  terms  of  the  evo- 
lutionary characteristics  of  our  experience;  and  that  this  tendency  has 
reached  its  culmination  in  the  conception  of  God  as  held  by  James. 

"  The  World  and  the  Individual,  II,  pp.  133  ff.;  The  Reality  of  the  Temporal,  The 
nternational  Journal  of  Ethics,  XX,  pp.  270  f.;  The  Philosophy  of  Loyalty,  pp.  394  f. 
"  See  above,  pp.  21  ff.,  31  ff.;  38  f.,  44  ff.;  49  ff.,  58  ff.;  69  ff.,  74  ff. 


94  BEARING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

The  implication,  then,  of  the  result  of  our  study  concerning  the 
problem  of  God  as  the  absolute  being,  for  theology  is  this :  that  it  should 
take  a  full  cognizance  of  the  evolutionary  and  finite  characteristics  of 
the  conceptions  of  God,  which  appear  in  Royce,  Eucken,  and  Bowne  as 
against  their  absolutistic  philosophical  presuppositions,  and  which  are 
definitely  afiirmed  by  James;  and  that  it  should  conceive  of  God  in  terms 
of  those  qualities  which  are  in  accord  with  the  results  of  empirical  inves- 
tigations of  the  world  and,  particularly,  of  human  religious  experience. 
In  following  the  suggestive  contributions  of  these  religious  philosophers 
and  in  assuming  this  investigative  attitude  toward  the  empirical  facts  of 
the  world  and  of  life,  we  find  that  all  realities  are  involved  in  the  processes 
of  change,  movement,  development.  It  has  already  been  indicated  that 
the  fact  of  change  and  of  growth  are  recognized  in  both  inorganic  and 
organic  realms  of  existence.'*^  The  reality  of  evolution  is  taken  for 
granted  and  the  application  of  it  is  made  in  all  the  fields  of  investigation, 
for  example,  in  sociology ;^^  in  psychology ;^^  in  philosophy ;^2  i^  ethics;^ 
in  theology;^  in  history  of  religion ;^^  and  in  the  psychology  of  religious 
experience.^  All  these  and  other  scientific  inquiries  accept  the  fact  of 
evolution  and  proceed  on  the  basis  of  this  fact.  One  of  the  clearest 
indications  of  our  immediate  experience  is  the  consciousness  of  the  time- 
process,  of  history,  of  development,  of  something  done.^^  Hoffding 
points  out  that  in  view  of  the  fact  that  our  empirical  world  is  not  finished, 

*^See  above,  pp.  10  f.,  also  the  books  cited  on  evolution;  cf.  Morgan,  Evolution 
and  Adaptation,  1903,  Chap.  II;  LeConte,  Evolution  and  Its  Relation  to  Religious 
Thought,  1889,  Part  II,  note  p.  63;  Osborn,  op.  cit.;  Chamberiin-Sahsbury,  Geology, 
1904,  etc. 

^°  See,  e.  g.,  Thomas,  Source  Book  for  Social  Origins,  1909;  Small,  General  Sociology, 
1905;  Kidd,  Social  Evolution,  1894;. 

^^  See,  e.  g.,  Baldwin,  Mental  Development;  Development  and  Evolution,  1902; 
Hobhouse,  Development  and  Purpose,  James,  Psychology. 

"  See,  e.  g.,  Baldwin,  Darwin  and  the  Humanities;  Dewey,  The  Influence  of  Darwin 
on  Philosophy,  1910;  The  Studies  in  Logical  Theory,  1903;  Windelband,  A  History  of 
Philosophy,  Eng.  tr.,  1905;  Rogers,  A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy. 

*3See,  e.  g.,  Hobhouse,  Morals  in  Evolution,  1906;  Dewey-Tufts,  Ethics,  1908, 
Part  I. 

"  See,  e.  g.,  Harnack,  History  of  Dogma,  7  vols.,  Eng.  tr.,  1897-1900;  Fisher, 
History  of  Christian  Doctrine;  Troeltsch,  The  Dogmatics  of  the  "  ReHgionsgeschicht- 
liche  Schule,"  American  Journal  of  Theology,  Jan.  1913. 

°^  See,  e.  g.,  Jevons,  An  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Religion,  1896;  Toy,  An  Intro- 
duction to  the  History  of  Religions,  1913;  Jordan,  Comparative  Religion,  Its  Genesis  and 
Growth,  1905;  Allen,  The  Evolution  of  the  Idea  of  God,  1897. 

^  See,  e.  g.,  Ames,  The  Psychology  of  Religious  Experience,  1,  King,  op.  cit. 
^     "7  Cf,  Dodson,  Bergson  and  the  Modern  Spirit,  1913,  p.  20;  Lyman,  op.  cit.,  p.  134. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  95 

but  that  it  always  presents  new  experiences  and  new  riddles,  we  cannot 
have  a  complete  knowledge.  And  he  suggests  the  idea  that  this  unfin- 
ishedness  of  our  knowledge  "may  perhaps  be  connected  with  the  fact 
that  Being  itself  is  not  ready-made,  but  still  incomplete,  and  rather  to  be 
conceived  as  a  continual  becoming,  like  individual  personaUty  and  like 
knowledge. "^^  So  far  as  our  scientific  studies  and  our  empirical  experi- 
ence show,  we  ourselves  and  the  realities  with  which  we  are  related  are 
characterized  by  change,  incompleteness,  unfinishedness,  growth,  devel- 
opment.^^ So  from  the  standpoint  of  our  empirical  investigation  and 
our  empirical  experience,  we  must  frankly  admit  that  the  world  as  a 
whole  is  involved  in  the  process  of  real  evolution. 

The  critical  question,  then,  is  whether  Gk)d  can  be  held  free  from 
the  process  of  evolution,  or  whether  he  is  to  be  conceived  in  terms  of 
such  a  process.  We  have  observed  that  from  the  standpoint  of  our 
actual  empirical  experience,  all  the  philosophers  of  rehgion  whom  we 
have  studied,  attribute  to  God  the  evolutionary  features  of  the  experience. 
And  this  experiential  mode  of  conceiving  God  should  be  followed,  for  it 
is  not  in  accord  with  the  empirical  temper  of  our  age  to  find  God  outside 
of  our  evolutionary  experience  and  to  define  him  other  than  in  terms  of 
such  experience. ^"^  Scientific  spirit  has  come  to  be  so  dominating  in  our 
modern  world  that  the  speculative  arguments  for  the  reaUty  and  the 
nature  of  God,  which  were  effective  in  the  past,  have  become  weak  in  their 
convincing  power.  Consequently,  in  order  that  any  conception  of  God 
may  be  a  living  factor  in  our  reUgious  life,  we  must,  it  would  seem,  con- 
ceive God  in  terms  of  those  characteristics  which  our  evolutionary 
sciences  and  experience  make  manifest.  There  may  be  a  realm  or  realms 
in  the  universe  where  change,  unfinishedness,  development  are  not 
found,  and  where  God  may  be  exempt  from  time  and  history;  but  the 
world  of  our  empirical  science  and  experience,  and  God  as  he  is  known  in 
the  experiences  of  the  race  are  all  marked  by  temporal  features.  God, 
then,  should  be  conceived  under  the  category,  not  of  completeness  and 
of  immutabiUty,  but  of  becoming  and  of  development. 

Thus  to  conceive  Grod  in  terms  of  evolutionary  experience,  rather 
than  under  the  category  of  some  metaphysical  absolute,  is  demanded 
by  our  religion  and  ethics.  If  by  religion  we  mean  pietistic  contempla- 
tion, philosophic  knowledge,  or  passive  receptivity,  then  the  conception 
of  God  as  the  absolute  being,  free  from  the  finite  aspects  of  our  world 

5«  The  Problems  of  Philosophy,  w.  120,  cf.  p.  136. 

*'  See  Schiller,  Studies  in  Humanism,  Essay,  XIX;  cf.  Moore,  op.  cit.,  pp.  37  f. 

*°  See  Ames,  The  Psyclwlogy  oj  Religious  Experience,  pp.  26,  317  f. 


96  BEARING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

and  experience,  may  be  satisfactory.  But  if  religion  means  not  merely 
the  faith  in  the  conservation  of  values,^^  but  also  an  effort  of  life  to 
attain  to  its  highest  values  in  the  world;  then  we  must  conceive  of  God 
not  only  in  terms  of  immanence,  but  primarily  as  vitally  and  actively 
related  with  us  in  the  achievement  of  the  values  of  religion.^^  The  view 
of  God  as  merely  immanent  in  the  world  is  practically  valueless  to  the 
religious  life  of  man  who  is  struggling  against  the  forces  of  evil  to  establish 
the  kingdom  of  righteousness  in  our  world.^^  The  God,  whom  practical 
religion  needs,  must  be  a  being  who  really  shares  in  its  struggles,  con- 
flicts, failures,  successes,  victories.  Such  a  God  has  really  been,  as 
James  suggests,  the  God  of  the  Hebrew  and  Christian  religions.  It  is, 
then,  not  the  absolute  who  includes  all  beings  by  his  all-embracing 
knowledge,  nor  the  absolute  who  is  completely  independent  of  the  world 
of  his  creation,  that  is  demanded  by  practical  religion;  but  it  is  a  God 
who  really  hears  our  prayers  and  who  is  actually  cooperating  with  us  to 
realize  the  aims  and  values  of  our  religion. 

Moreover,  from  the  point  of  view  of  our  ethics,  we  need  the  concep- 
tion of  God  as  well  as  of  the  world  as  unfinished  and  becoming.  The 
futility  of  the  traditional  conception  of  God  as  the  absolute  being  who  has 
definitely  determined  the  course  of  the  world  and  of  human  history  in 
accordance  with  his  eternal  plan  becomes  seK-evident,  when  we  see  that 
our  moral  life  demands  that  it  ought  to  and  really  can  change  the  charac- 
ter of  our  moral  universe.  The  changeabiUty  of  the  world  is  thus  one 
of  the  elemental  needs  of  our  ethical  life.  But  if  God  is  essentially  an 
immutable  being  with  an  absolute  purpose  for  and  control  of  the  world, 
then  there  is  created  an  antithesis  and  unreality  between  him  and  our 
ethical  consciousness;  for  ethically,  so  far  as  our  moral  experience  indi- 
cates, we  are  aware  of  the  changes  which  we  effect  not  merely  in  the 
plan  and  direction  of  our  own  life,  but  also  in  our  social  environment. 
Hoffding  remarks  thus  on  this  point:  "If  Being  were  finished,  harmoni- 
ously and  unchangeably,  Ethics  would  be  impossible.  All  Ethics 
demands  that  there  be  effort.  But  there  would  be  no  room  for  effort,  if 
everything  were  in  eternal  and  actual  completeness."®^  Thus  both  our 
religion  and  our  ethics  demand  that  we  conceive  of  God  not  as  an  abso- 

"  Hoffding,  The  Philosophy  of  Religion,  pp.  9  ff.,  215  ff. 
"  Cf.  G.  B.  Foster,  The  Function  of  Religion,  1909,  pp.  173-183. 
83  Cf.  Lyman,  op.  cit.,  pp.  21  f.,  185  f. 

^The  Problems  of  Philosophy,  p.  151,  cf.  ibid.,  pp.  158  ff.;  cf.  Schiller,  op.  cit., 
Essay  XVIII  on  Freedom. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  97 

lute  but  as  a  relative  finite  being,  actually  related  with  us  in  our  religious 
and  moral  life. 

But  thus  to  bring  relativity  and  finitude  into  the  being  of  God  means, 
of  course,  that  we  possess  no  absolute  ground  of  our  religious  and  ethical 
assurance.  The  traditional  conception  of  God  as  the  absolute  and 
infinite  being  does  assure  us  that  the  world,  in  spite  of  its  appearances 
to  the  contrary,  will  be  saved  by  him  at  least  in  so  far  as  he  elects.  But 
the  view  of  God  as  actually  involved  in  the  struggles  and  works  of  man 
does  not  guarantee  beforehand  the  ultimate  success  of  our  world.^ 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  the  most  stanch  believers  in  the  traditional 
view  of  God  must  admit  that  the  absolute  certainty  as  to  their  salvation 
is  not  a  question  of  fact  but  of  faith;  they  are  to  be  reUgious  and  ethical 
in  the  hope  that  they  may  be  saved.  So  from  the  standpoint  of  our 
actual  moral  and  religious  experience,  there  is  not  vouchsafed  to  us  the 
certainty  of  final  salvation.  This  wiU  not  lead  us  to  pessimism  and 
inactivity.  For  we  are  so  constituted  that  when  we  are  thus  uncertain 
as  to  the  ultimate  success  of  the  world,  we  work  so  much  harder  in  the 
hope  that  we  may,  with  God's  help,  brmg  it  to  a  happy  issue.  God, 
then,  from  the  viewpoint  of  practical  religion  and  ethics,  may  be  con- 
ceived of  as  that  great  environing  reality  of  the  growing  universe,  who 
is  ever  responsive  to  the  calls  of  our  need,  who  represents  our  highest 
rehgio-ethical  ideals  and  values,  and  who  is  constantly  working  with  us 
for  the  achievement  of  these  ideals  and  values.  At  any  rate,  such  seems 
to  be  the  conception  of  God  which  is  in  accord  with  the  evolutionary 
theory  and  the  temporal  character  of  our  experience. 

This  conception  of  God  in  terms  of  evolutionary  theory  and  our 
changing,  growing  experience  is  held  not  only  by  James,  but  also  by 
others  who,  like  him,  are  interested  more  or  less  in  the  religious  and 
ethical  problems  of  our  time.^  We  may,  then,  conclude  this  section 
with  the  remark  that  as  men  are  guided  by  the  knowledge  brought  to 
light  by  the  empirical  investigations  of  science  and  by  the  actual  needs 
of  rehgious  and  moral  life,  they  tend  to  conceive  of  God  in  terms  of  our 
evolutionary  world  and  experience.  With  this  remark,  we  shall  now 
turn  to  the  last  problem  of  our  study. 

«*  Cf .  McTaggart,  Some  Dogmas  of  Religion,  pp.  259  f . 

«  See,  e.  g.,  Johnson,  op.  ciL,  Chaps.  V-VIII;  Waterhouse,  op.  cit.,  pp.  400  ff.; 
Foster,  op.  cit.,  pp.  177  f.;  Dodson,  op.  cit.,  p.  273;  E.  Herrmann,  Eucken  and  Bergson, 
Their  Significance  for  Christian  Thought,  1913,  p.  171;  Lyman,  op.  cit.,  pp.  148  fif.; 
Hobhouse,  Development  and  Purpose,  pp.  368  fif.;  Schiller,  Riddles  of  the  Sphinx,  pp. 
313  ff.;  McTaggart,  op.  cit.,  pp.  186  ff.,  Chap.  VII;  etc. 


98  BEARING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

5.    The  Problem  of  God's  Relation  to  Man  and  the  World. 

This  problem  has  already  been  partly  discussed  in  our  consideration 
of  the  preceding  two  problems.  But  the  result  and  the  implication  of 
our  study  regarding  the  problem  should  be  more  definitely  stated.  To 
take  up,  first,  the  problem  of  God's  relation  to  man,  we  observe  that 
while  our  philosophers  of  religion  differ  on  this  point  from  the  standpoint 
of  their  philosophies,  they,  on  the  whole,  agree  from  the  viewpoint  of 
empiricism.  Since  Royce  philosophically  conceives  of  man  as  a  manifes- 
tation of  an  all-inclusive  absolute,  he  tends  to  jeopardize  the  place  of 
man.  But,  as  we  have  seen,  Royce  contends,  moved  by  his  moral 
experience,  for  the  ethical  selffood  of  man.  Eucken  is  not  interested  in 
finding  out  the  ontological  relation  of  God  and  man;  his  interest  is 
fundamentally  a  practical  one:  How  can  man  be  saved  from  the  forces 
of  the  antagonistic  world?  In  answer  to  this  question,  he  holds  that 
God  is  the  indispensable  presupposition  of  man's  salvation.  Yet  this 
salvation  is  not  a  matter  of  donation;  man  must  achieve  it  through 
struggle  and  work.  Thus  Eucken  assumes  the  dignity  and  power  of  man. 
Bowne  attempts  to  set  forth  the  ontological  relation  of  man  to  God  by  his 
theory  of  eternal  creation,  that  is,  that  man  is  dependent  on  God  for 
his  existence.  He  admits  that,  metaphysically  considered,  man  seems 
to  possess  only  a  phenomenal  reality.  But  he  appeals  to  experience  to 
establish  the  distinct  existence  of  man  over  against  God.  In  James, 
we  find  that  no  effort  is  made  to  construe  man's  ontological  relation  to 
God.  The  only  thing  he  says  on  this  point  is  this:  that  man  and  God 
are  alike  in  their  nature.  James  is  specially  concerned  to  exalt  the 
powers  of  man  which  belong  to  him  empirically.  And  yet  he  does  not 
ignore  the  fact  of  man's  dependence  on  God;  for  he  sees  in  God  a  great 
spiritual  factor,  who  aids  man  in  his  moral  conquest.  Thus  all  these 
philosophers  of  religion  recognize  in  the  relation  of  God  and  man  the 
two  elements:  man's  independence  of  and  his  dependence  on  God;  and 
they  tend  to  explain  this  relationship  on  the  ground  of  experience  and 
for  practical  considerations.^^ 

The  implication,  for  theology,  of  this  inquiry  as  to  the  relation  of  God 
and  man  is  that  our  primary  concern  should  not  be  to  consider  their 
relation  in  terms  of  the  biblical  and  traditional  anthropology,  but  to 
proceed  on  the  basis  of  the  facts  disclosed  by  science  and  human  experi- 
ence. Theology,  working  from  this  point  of  view  to  define  its  concep- 
tion of  the  relation  of  God  and  man,  will  be  aided  by  such  sciences  as 
anthropology,  biology,  sociology,  general  psychology,  and,  especially, 

*'  See  above,  pp.  33;  47  f.  ;  61;  67. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  99 

by  the  history  of  religion  and  the  psychology  of  religious  experience. 
In  studying  the  results  of  these  sciences,  we  shall  find  that  man  is  con- 
scious of  his  dependence  on  and  independence  of  his  environment.  Man 
comes  to  the  sense  of  his  dependence  on  the  natural  environment,  as  he 
thinks  of  the  vastness  of  the  physical  universe  and  of  his  inabihty  to 
compete  with  the  forces  of  such  a  universe.  And  as  man  is  led  to  recog- 
nize the  existence  of  social  relationships,  he  becomes  conscious  of  his 
dependence  on  the  social  environment.  By  thus  proceeding  from  the 
concrete  aspects  of  human  experience,  it  will  be  made  clear  to  us  that 
we  are  dependent,  for  much  of  our  life  and  activity,  on  God  who  is  a 
great  element  of  our  environment.  But  this  sense  of  dependence  is  not 
the  whole  of  man's  experience  in  his  relation  to  God.  Man  is  not  wholly 
of  nature,  for  he  can  control  its  forces  for  his  own  advancement;  and  so  he 
transcends  the  natural  life.  Man  and  his  social  environment  are  inti- 
mately bound  up  with  each  other  ;®^  and  yet  man's  individuaUty  is  a 
fact,  for  he  has  the  sense  of  his  own  responsibiUty  which  he  does  not 
attribute  to  his  society.  Furthermore,  man  and  God,  though  closely 
related,  we  would  hold,  cannot  be  identified ;  for  we  would  not  surrender 
our  own  consciousness  of  moral  initiative  and  accountability.  So 
the  sense  of  independence  is  another  aspect  of  our  experience.  And 
this  consciousness  of  autonomous  power  on  the  part  of  man  is  markedly 
strong  in  the  modern  age,  as  result  of  his  increasing  conquest  over  the 
forces  of  the  physical  world.  Theology  must  take  account  of  this  sense 
of  human  power,  so  that  it  may  not  define  man's  relation  to  God  in 
terms  of  receptivity,  as  is  done  by  traditional  theology  in  consequence  of 
its  supernaturalism,  but  in  terms  of  activity  directed  toward  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  society  of  love  and  righteousness.  In  thus  examining  our 
relation  to  God  on  the  basis  of  empirical  science  and  experience,  we  shall 
conceive  it  in  terms  of  dependence  and  independence  and  of  practical 
moral  reUgious  activity,  leaving  the  question  of  the  ontological  nature 
of  this  relation  until  further  light  is  thrown  on  it  by  our  science  and 
experience.  This  view  of  man's  relation  to  God  is  demanded  by  the 
evolutionary  theory  which,  as  we  have  seen,  holds  that  the  forces  making 
the  evolution  of  life  possible  are  resident  in  the  organisms  and  in  their 
environment.^^ 

•»  Cooley,  Human  Nature  and  Social  Order,  1902,  pp.  2  ff. 

"'  It  is  not  our  aim  here  to  touch  upon  the  theological  doctrines  involved  in  man*s 
relation  to  God,  namel}^  sin  and  salvation.  For  a  very  suggestive  treatment  of  these 
subjects  from  the  standpoint  of  social  psychology,  see  Royce,  The  Problem  of  Christi- 
anity, I,  esp.  Lectures  III-VI. 


100  BEARING  or  THE  EVOLUTIONERY  THEORY 

Lastly,  we  come  to  the  problem  of  God's  relation  to  the  world.  With 
regard  to  this  problem,  it  should  frankly  be  admitted  that  we  cannot,  so 
far  as  we  know,  give  answer  to  the  question  of  the  beginnings  of  the 
world.  The  theory  of  cosmic  evolution  traces  the  development  of  our 
world  to  its  small  beginnings,  and  the  doctrine  of  organic  evolution  con- 
ceives of  life  as  arising  from  some  protoplasmic  germs;  but  we  do  not 
know,  as  James  says,  the  Whence  and  How  of  the  world — they  are 
matters  of  speculation,  as  yet,  so  we  must  wait  for  new  lights  to  answer 
these  questions.  Meanwhile,  what  religion  wishes  to  recognize  is 
whether  God  is  now  causally  related  to  the  evolutionary  process  of  the 
world.    This  raises  at  once  the  question  of  teleology  and  of  evil. 

The  answers,  which  are  given  by  our  religious  philosophers,  may  be 
stated  as  follows.  Royce  conceives  of  the  world  of  nature  as  embodying, 
in  a  partial  manner,  the  will  of  God.  From  the  point  of  view  of  the 
absolute,  there  are  no  real  evils  in  the  world;  but  Royce  maintains,  from 
the  standpoint  of  empirical  experience,  the  temporary  reality  of  evil. 
Eucken  could  not  suffer  the  idea  that  nature  as  such  is  the  cause  of 
human  evolution;  for  him,  God  must  be  working  in  the  process  of  nature 
for  the  production  of  man.  As  to  the  problem  of  evil,  he  confesses 
that  it  is  speculatively  and  also  practically  insoluble;  evils  are  in  the 
world,  but  we  do  not  know  why  they  are  there.  Bowne  definitely  stands 
for  the  teleological  relation  of  God  to  the  world.  That  there  are  evils  in 
the  world  is  fully  admitted  by  him;  but  he  leaves  them  to  the  judgment 
of  human  experience  to  decide  the  why  of  their  existence.  In  his  thought, 
God  is  not  at  all  responsible  for  their  being.  James  concedes  that 
there  is  some  purpose  in  the  world,  while  he  does  not  consider  it  as 
absolute.  He  suggests  the  view  that  God  may  be  teleologically  related 
to  the  world  in  that  he  wishes  to  think  of  God,  rather  than  matter,  as 
present  in  the  process  of  evolution;  but  he  is  not  explicit  on  this  point. 
He  fully  admits  the  real  existence  of  evils  in  the  world;  there  is  no  rational 
reason  for  their  being  there,  but  they  are  there.  He  does  not  make 
God  causally  responsible  for  their  existence;  he  would  hold  him  responsi- 
ble, like  ourselves,  for  trying  to  eliminate  evils. '^^  Thus  all  these  relig- 
ious philosopher  shold  that  there  is  some  purpose  in  the  world  ;^^  and  that 
there  are  evils  in  the  world,  but  God  is  not  responsible  for  their  existence. ^^ 

'^  The  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience,  pp.  131  f. 

''^  In  the  case  of  Royce,  Eucken,  and  Bowne  the  purpose  would  be  asbolute  from 
the  standpoint  of  their  philosophies;  but  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  empirical  ele- 
ments present  in  them  with  regard  to  teleology,  it  must  be  a  limited  one,  James 
holds  to  a  finite  purpose  in  accordance  with  his  conception  of  God. 

72  See  above,  pp.  25  f.,  32  f.;  40  f.,  46  f.;  51,  60  f.;  68,  71,  77  f. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  101 

That  there  is  some  purpose  in  the  evolutionary  process  of  the  world 
seems  to  be  in  agreement  with  the  evolutionary  theory.  Lamarck  con- 
ceives of  organisms  as  proceeding  from  less  to  more  perfect  forms. 
Darwin  considers  that  the  variations  useful  to  the  organic  beings  are 
preserved  for  their  good.  Since  these  evolutionists  conceive  of  God 
deistically,  they  do  not  hold  that  he  is  teleologically  active  in  the  process. 
But  they  have  to  admit  that  ultimately,  from  their  theistic  position, 
God  is  causally  related  to  the  process.  At  any  rate,  they  would  not 
deny  that  there  is  a  limited  evolutionary  teleology  in  the  process. '^^ 
Bergson,  too,  would  not  eliminate  all  purpose  from  the  process,  though 
he  does  not  hold  to  an  absolute  teleology;  his  teleology  is  a  limited, 
growing  one.  And  God,  for  him,  is  unceasingly  creating  the  forms  of 
life  in  the  world."^^  Hobhouse  holds  that,  from  the  point  of  view  of 
empirical  investigation,  the  mechanical  theory  of  the  evolutionary 
theory  is  untenable;  but  that  it  must  be  admitted  that  there  is  a  purpose 
working  under  conditions,  so  a  limited  purpose.  ^^  Thus,  on  the  whole, 
it  may  be  legitimately  said  that  there  is  an  evolutionary  teleology  in  the 
process  of  evolution. ^^ 

Moreover,  that  there  are  evils  in  the  world  is  admitted  by  all  the 
evolutionists.  But  it  is  in  regard  to  their  explanation  that  opinion 
differs.  It  would  seem  that  the  tendency  of  our  philosophers  of  reUgion 
is  to  take  a  practical  attitude  toward  the  problem  of  evil.  Royce 
says  that  "Man's  practical  business  is  with  the  direction  of  his  own  will 
to  the  service  of  God,"^^  rather  than  with  the  speculation  as  to  the 
presence  of  evils  in  the  world.  Eucken  would  not  speculate  on  this 
problem;  but  he,  like  James,  urges  us  to  fight  against  the  forces  of  evil. 
Bowne,  too,  exhorts  men  to  put  down  the  powers  of  evil.  We  may 
conjecture  that  since  God  is  limited,  he  could  not  control  the  world 
without  involving  it  in  evils.  Or  we  may  say  that  the  elements  in  the 
world  are  not  yet  harmonized,  hence  evils  result. '^^  This  is  indeed  a 
dark  problem.  Theology  must  deal  wdth  it  wisely  and  critically.  But 
from  the  standpoint  of  practical  religion  and  ethics,  it  seems  sufficient 
to  say  that,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  we  are  unable  as  yet  to  give  a  satis- 

"  See  Baldvsdn,  Darwin  and  the  Humanities,  pp.  81  ff.;  Moore,  op.  cit.,  pp.  261  ff. 
^*0p.  cit.,  pp.  248  f.,  265  ff.;  cf.  Dodson,  op.  cit.,  pp.  230  ff. 
"^  Development  and  Purpose,  Intr.  pp.  xxvi  ff.,  367,  cf.  371  f. 
'« Cf.  Moore,  op.  cit.,  XII,  The  Ethical  Aspect,  pp.  257-278. 
"  The  World  and  the  Individual,  II,  p.  388. 

'8  So  Hobhouse,  Development  and  Purpose,  p.  368;  cf.  Hoffding,  The  Problems  of 
Philosophy,  pp.  136,  150,  158  ff.,  173  f. 


i02  BE:AS.ING  OF  THE  EVOLUTIONARY  THEORY 

factory  answer  to  the  question  of  God's  real  relation  to  the  evils  in  the 
world,  what  is  demanded  of  us  is,  recognizing  their  existence  and  seeing 
also  that  they  cannot  be  reduced  unless  we  fight  against  them,  to  struggle 
and  work,  with  God,  in  opposition  to  the  evils  in  us  and  in  the  world  to 
estabUsh  a  world  of  love  and  righteousness.  So  we  may  conclude  this 
last  section  on  the  problem  of  God's  relation  to  man  and  to  the  world 
with  the  observation  that,  from  the  standpoint  of  man's  practical  moral 
religious  life,  his  needs  would  be  met  by  holding  the  view  that  we  our- 
selves and  the  world  are  somehow  dependent  on  God  for  existence  and 
progress,  and  that  God  is  incessantly  working  in  the  world  and  with 
ourselves  to  estabUsh  a  world  of  righteousness  and  love — an  ideal  religious 
ethical  community.'^® 

We  have  now  reached  the  end  of  our  investigation  of  the  bearing  of 
the  inductive  evolutionary  theory  on  the  conception  of  God  as  it  is 
worked  out  in  t)^ical  recent  philosophies  of  religion.  Our  inquiry  has 
specially  been  directed  toward  the  solutions  given  by  these  philosophies 
of  the  problems  which  arose  in  the  attempt  to  bring  the  traditional 
conception  of  God  into  relation  with  the  evolutionary  theory.  These 
problems,  we  have  found,  to  center  around  the  question  of  empiricism 
or  metempiricism  in  method  and  in  theory.  The  question,  then,  is  of 
twofold  character:  (1)  whether  theology  shall  make  use  of  a  thorough- 
going empirical  method  in  the  formulation  of  its  conception  of  God,  or 
whether  shall  proceed  from  the  standpoint  of  some  a  priori  principle  or 
principles;  (2)  whether  theology  shall  be  content,  for  the  time  being 
at  least,  with  those  affirmations  concerning  God  which  are  in  accord  with 
the  results  of  empirical  science  (in  a  comprehensive  sense)  and  with  the 
actual  religious  experiences  of  the  race,  or  whether  shall  conceive  of  God 
in  terms  of  some  content  of  truth  or  truths  which  is  derivable  neither 
through  the  investigations  of  science  nor  through  the  examination  of 
the  evolutionary  experiences  of  religion.  The  one  outstanding  result  of 
our  study  of  the  solutions  offered  by  the  religious  philosophers  on  the 
question  is  this:  that  even  Royce,  Eucken,  and  Bowne,  who  do  not 
philosophically  stand  for  empiricism  either  in  method  or  in  theory, 
employ  many  elements  derivable  in  and  through  experience,  and  make 
certain  afl&rmations  concerning  God  on  the  basis  of  these  empirical  ele- 
ments; and  that  James  proceeds  on  the  basis  of  what  he  calls  "radical 
empiricism"  in  his  method  and  in  his  conception  of  God.  The  tendency, 
then,  which  is  marked  in  Royce,  Eucken,  and  Bowne  in  spite  of  their 

"  Cf.  Ward,  op.  cit.,  Lecture  XI,  The  Idea  of  Creation. 


ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  103 

absolutistic  philosophical  presuppositions,  and  which  reaches  its  cul- 
minating point  in  James,  is  empiricism  in  method  and  in  theory.  This 
result  of  our  investigation,  and  its  implications  for  theology  should  be 
carefully  recognized  and  considered  by  theology  in  its  construction  of 
the  doctrine  of  God.  At  any  rate,  the  evolutionary  theory  demands  a 
thoroughgoing  empirical  method  and  a  doctrine  of  God  based  on  this 
method.  The  typical  recent  philosophies  of  reUgion  which  we  have 
examined  give  fruitful  suggestions  for  the  theologain  who  desires  to  grapple 
with  this  important  and  difficult  reconstruction  of  doctrine. 


LOAN  DEPT 

'"'""'  »  "nmediate  recaU. 


(g//2U°r.?aB' 


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